


Laura versus the Intersect

by afoolwhodreams



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Chuck!AU, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Romance, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-06 15:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 45,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4227705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afoolwhodreams/pseuds/afoolwhodreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura Hollis lives with her two best friends, Lafontaine and Perry, while working in the nerd herd section of the Buy More, fixing computers. On her birthday, she receives an email from Danny Lawrence, an old college flame she hadn't heard from in years. With that email Laura's life is turned upside down as she starts having strange flashes of things she shouldn't know, while a mysterious stranger comes into her life and turns it upside down.<br/>Or, the Chuck!AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Laura vs. the Intersect

“LaF, I’m really starting to feel like this is a bad idea.”

Laura held the improvised rope she had made out of her sheet as per LaF’s instructions, while her friend measured her window frame with geometric instruments they seemingly made appear out of thin air.

“This is not a bad idea, this is a last resort, and it is very much needed right now. Now girl the hell up and help me tie those sheets to the window before-“

“Laura, honey, are you- what do you think you’re doing?”

Perry asked, standing in the doorway of Laura’s room, arms crossed and accusatory eyes.

“Um.. Escaping?”

Laura admitted, LaF just sitting there, one leg hanging from the windowsill whilst they looked at Perry with an apologetic smile.

“From your own birthday party?”

Laura sheepishly averted her gaze as Perry pursed her lips and shifted her eyes between the two of them, awaiting an answer.

“Look, Perr, Laura here is just feeling a bit out of place, cause, you know, you invited all your friends from your knitting club, and from your reading club, and your colleagues from the bakery…”

Perry gave them a questioning look and they failed to finish their sentence, not knowing how to do that without hurting their girlfriend’s feelings.

“I guess what Laf’s trying to say is, even though it was very kind of you to put this party together for me, I don’t really know anyone and they all seem to be very well established people and I, you know, I work at the Buy More and I never even finished college and..”

Perry cut her off.

“Nonsense. You two get out of those ridiculous Diabolic customs you’ve put on and make yourselves presentable. There are a lot of single ladies out there, Laura, I’m sure you’ll have plenty in common with at least some of them.”

She said with a pierced smile, walking out the door. Laura exchanged a defeated look with Laf before rolling her eyes and going to change. This was going to be a long night.

 

“So what do you do?”

Asked the pretty girl Laura was begrudgingly chatting with.

“I, um, I work at the Buy More .”

She answered with her best fake smile.

“Oh! That’s... nice. As a career break, or just part-time, or..?”

“Nope. Just, as a career.”

Laura couldn’t help the annoyed sarcastic tone that escaped her mouth on that last word. She was trying to be nice to these girls, she really was, for Perry’s sake if anything. But she had had this conversation a dozen times since she left the safe nest of her room and she could feel every little shred of dignity she had left leave her body with every sympathetic look she got.

“Hey, listen, it was really nice meeting you, uh..”

“Sarah Jane” the girl provided.

“Yes, of course, it was nice meeting you Sarah Jane, but I am really beat, I think I’m going to call it a night. Thanks for coming though”

Laura gave her one last tight-lipped smile before running off towards her house. She found Perry and LaFontaine in front of her door, poorly trying to pretend they hadn’t been following her failed attempts of making conversation with these girls.

“Hey, Perr, thanks again for everything, but I think I’m done for tonight.”

“Are you sure? I don’t think you’ve met Natalie yet, she’s really nice, she-“

Perry was ready to gesture the girl over from the other side of the yard when an elbow hit her stomach lightly.

“Go rest, Laur. Happy birthday.”

Laf said with a smile. Perry glared at them for a second before her feature softened.

“Yes, happy birthday Laura” she repeated.

The birthday girl smiled at both her friends and mumbled a 'thank you' before retreating in their house. She moved in with them after leaving college for what was supposed to be a transitioning period, but she’d been transitioning for five years now and let’s be honest, she wasn’t really going anywhere. The thought was kind of depressing so she tried to push it aside. She wasn’t going to be sad on her birthday. At least, she would try not to be.

She was getting ready for bed when she heard the TARDIS noise coming from her computer. She smiled to herself; of course her dad would send her an e-mail too, to say how sorry he was he couldn’t be there, as if the twenty messages and ten phone calls hadn’t sufficed.

Her smile dropped when she clicked on the little envelope icon and was greeted with the last name she’d thought she would read there: Danny Lawrence. Her ex-girlfriend Danny Lawrence. The same Danny Lawrence who was oh so supportive of her dream of becoming a journalist in college until she got expelled for stealing documents from the Dean’s office for her expose about thousands of dollars of university funds mysteriously disappearing. The same Danny Lawrence who didn’t even give her a chance to explain, not the night the Dean herself came to her dorm, humiliating her in front of the whole school with an expulsion letter, not the morning after when she stood outside the Summer Society door for nearly an hour waiting to say goodbye, before giving up and leaving the campus for good.

That Danny Lawrence who hadn’t sent her so much as a postcard since… had remembered her birthday? Laura couldn’t even begin to list the set of emotions flowing through her system; anger, confusion, sadness, anger again. But as always, the winning one was her indomitable curiosity.

She decided to focus on that and clicked on the mail. She furrowed her brow when before her eyes appeared a cryptic, seemingly non-sense, definitely non-birthday-related message.

“Town hall and sardines?”

Laura read, as if saying them aloud would magically give the words meaning. When she saw the spaces left under the ridiculous question, though, a light bulb appeared at the back of her mind and shaking her head in slight disbelieve, she typed with a small smile “pizza or death”. As soon as she finished the last word a hurricane of images started flashing on her screen in a crazy fast pace. She stood before her computer, unable to take her eyes off it for what felt like hours, until all the images blended together and all she could see was darkness.

 

 

When she woke up the next morning her head was pounding, her back hurting.

‘Great’, she thought, ‘I fell asleep on the floor. Congratulations Hollis, always reaching new lows’.

She brought a hand to her head as she carefully stood up. Had she really drank that much last night? She wasn’t much of a drinker but she definitely had a major headache and she also couldn’t really remember the night before; even without her innate investigative skills the conclusion was pretty obvious. She groaned and took her yellow pillow from the bed where it rested next to her, throwing it on her face, willing the pain to go away.

“Don’t think that’s going to help much.”

Laf’s amused tone came from the doorway.

“But you know what might? Perry’s homemade waffles.”

They made a show of holding a plate full of them before their face and sniffing it happily.

Laura put her pillow down and her head shot up to look at her friend. She regretted the movement almost instantly and scrunched up her face when her headache punished her for it.

Laf chuckled.

“They’re in the kitchen. There are some advils too, figured you might need them. Although, you know, I’ve been working on this new hungover cure - well, it’s really an everything cure. I made it out of pineapple juice and a special kind of seashell. Had to have that imported from South America, but...”

Laura gave them a small smile and stopped their rambling.

“As much as I love being your guinea pig in borderline illegal experiments, I have work in…”

She glanced at the clock and sighed.

“...15 minutes, so it’s probably best not to risk it for now.”

“Suit yourself.”

Laf said, throwing an entire waffle into their mouth and leaving her room. Laura slowly got up and went to take a quick shower before getting ready for work. She sat at the kitchen table enjoying Perry’s baked goods, Laf sitting across from her as their former floor-don cleaned the spotless counter.

“Have you heard about that poor girl? Betty something, she went to school with us? Her father was involved in some kind of secret operation and now they’re saying he’s missing in action. I can’t even imagine how she must be feeling.”

Laf gave her hand a comforting squeeze, temporarily stopping her frantic cleaning. Perry sighed.

“I feel so guilty, I can’t even seem to remember her last name, and I was her floor don!”

“Yeah for, like, a month. During freshman year. Don’t beat yourself up, Perr. And if it makes you feel any better, her name’s Spieldorf, daughter of general Spieldorf. It was all over the news this morning.”

Laura’s head involuntarily shot up at the name and she had the strangest feeling. It was like a déjà vu, spinning images going through her head, information filling her mind. And then it was gone.

“Laura? You okay there?”

Laura looked up to be met with two pairs of worried eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Just, still feeling a bit off, you know?”

She said, quickly getting up and putting her plate in the sink.

“Anyway, I better get going if I don’t want to be late for work. see you tonight!”

And like that, she left, not giving her ginger friends the time to ask her any more questions.

 

She had tried to get her whole strange morning out of her head but her job didn’t exactly offer many distractions. So as she stood behind the nerd herd counter, bored out of her mind, she couldn’t help her thoughts from slipping back to that strange déjà vu episode she had and then again to last night. She saw a tall girl enter the shop and suddenly she remembered. Danny! Danny sent her something. A mail. But, was it a mail? There was that strange riddle and then, images. A flood of images like the one she saw during breakfast, albeit very briefly. She shook her head. None of this made any sense.

She had been so caught up in her thoughts she hadn’t even realised somebody had walked up to her booth. She couldn’t help but jump in surprise when she heard the little bell sitting right in front of her ring, dropping the pen she was absentmindedly chewing. Her eyes shot up and she was met with beautiful dark ones as the stranger smirked at her with amusement.

‘Good going Hollis, you managed to make a fool of yourself before even exchanging hellos with somebody. Today is really your day’, she thought, straightening up and attempting to look somewhat professional.

“Hi! Sorry! Totally didn’t see you there, I was just, uh, thinking about stuff and I didn’t realise anybody walked up and..”

Breathe, Laura.

“…Yeah, sorry. What can I do for you?”

The girl’s smirk didn’t falter and her eyes didn’t leave Laura for a second as she swiftly took a phone out of the back pocket of her – was that leather? – pants.

“My phone’s not working” she slurred.

The Buy More employee stared a little too long before breaking eye contact and taking the phone the girl was offering her.

“Oh, I know this model! It has a little screw that pops loose from time to time but you just need to...”

She picked up her screwdriver and twisted it a couple times.

“Do that. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.”

She handed the phone back with a smile although mentally kicking herself because, easy peasy, seriously?

The girl opened her mouth to speak but before she could say anything, a man and his daughter walked up to Laura, seemingly in a frenzy.

“Excuse me, excuse me! I need your help. I shot my daughter’s recital today and I went back to look at the footage but it’s just, it’s gone and I was wondering if you maybe knew how to get it back?”

Laura took the camera the man was holding and carefully opened it.

“Sir, where’s the tape?”

The man looked at her puzzled.

“Tape? What tape? It’s digital, isn’t it?”

Laura tried not to roll her eyes. This happened more often then you’d think and that was on a good day.

“You still need a tape.”

She stole a quick glance at the leather-clad girl who was just standing there, following the exchange. Letting a small sigh escape her mouth, she turned back to the man, who seemed to have gone a shade paler in the past 30 seconds.

“Okay, don’t panic. I have a plan.”

She smiled at him and winked at his daughter.

“I’ll be right back.”

She looked back at the dark haired girl one last time before going to talk to a colleague to help her.

Five minutes later she was looking at the girl dancing happily, her image scattered across multiple screens behind her, her dad cheering. As she finished dancing, Laura disconnected the camera and gave it to the man.

“Thank you SO much, you are really a life saver.”

“No problem.”

Laura smiled, waving the both of them goodbye. As she turned back to the Nerd Herd booth she couldn’t help the little pout that formed on her lips as she realised the girl had left. She walked back to it and sat down in her chair as she noticed one of their buymore cards seemed to be out of place. She picked it up and her eyes widened when she saw a phone number scribbled across it, followed by two xx’s and a name. Carmilla.

 

 

“What’s that?”

Laf asked, their mouth half full of popcorn, as they sat next to Laura on the couch, bowl in hand.

“Nothing!”

She quickly shoved the card in her pocket and leaned forward to grab a handful of popcorn, hoping to distract her friend. A plan that quickly backfired as Laf took advantage of her position to take the card out of her jeans in a swift movement.

“Who’s Carmilla?”

They held the card up, wiggling their eyebrows.

“Nobody.”

Laura slouched back into the couch cushions, crossing her arms.

“Now shut up about it before Perry hears you and makes a way bigger deal out of this than it is.”

“What should I not make a big deal out of?”

Perry appeared from the kitchen behind them with a plate of vegetables. Laura couldn’t help the small smile that formed on her face; their friend would never stop trying to make them eat healthier, even if she knew it was a lost cause.

“Laura here met a girl.”

Laf said with a devilish grin, effectively bringing her out of her thoughts and back to reality.

“Oh Laura, dear, that is fantastic news! How is she?”

Perry put the plate on the table and sat down, holding her hands together in front of her and giving Laura her undivided attention.

“She’s…”

Gorgeous. And had phone trouble. That was literally all she knew about this person.

“Just a customer” she settled on.

“A costumer who left you her number.”

Laf added, holding the card up for Perry to see. The curled-haired ginger lit up.

“That is great, Laura! Have you called her yet?”

“I am not really sure I’m going to.”

The short girl mumbled, preparing herself for the usual lecture on how she needed to get out more, and meet new people, and stop spending all her free time writing on a journalism blog nobody read and watching way too many tv shows. Was there even such a thing as too many tv shows?

“Why not? She clearly wants you to.”

Perry said, encouragingly.

“Was she hot?”

Laf asked, gaining a disapproving glare from their girlfriend.

“Yes” Laura answered after a moment. “Very, actually” she added with a blush.

“So she is hot, single, and interested in you. Yeah I can totally see why you wouldn’t call her”, her friend teased. Laura rolled her eyes.

“Maybe she was too hot. She looked like someone who has a job and a life and ambition and I-”

“And you what? You don’t?”

“I don’t know” Laura answered honestly.

After a few moments of silence, she suddenly got up.

“Listen guys I’m not really feeling up for movie night anymore, I think I’m going to go to bed early. Goodnight.”

She gave them a small smile before getting back to her room.

 

She woke up hearing muffled metallic noises, as if someone was trying to pry a door open and failing miserably. She mumbled slightly, willing the wind to stop blowing so hard and let her sleep.

And the wind listened. Which was odd, Laura realised, even in her half asleep mind.

She slowly opened her eyes and blinked twice at the dark figure standing before her, rustling with her window with one hand whilst holding something with the other. Wait, was that her computer? Black figure holding her computer and attempting to escape from the window; Laura’s eyes shot completely open and she felt herself wake up at the realisation she was being robbed. Her. She would’ve laughed because this is just what she needed right now, but she was feeling slightly terrified.

The burglar seemed quite shaken themselves, as they probably weren’t expecting Laura to wake up. They had been unlucky that she did when she did too, because as they slowly let go of the window, it popped open with a creak. Laura decided it was time to put her krav maga lessons to work as she shot out of bed and jumped on the robber, who, taken aback, dropped the computer out the window with a loud crash.

Laura wasted no time in trying to get a punch or a kick in, but her opponent was fast and definitely skilled. Suddenly her door shot open and a sleepy Lafontaine appeared, holding a broomstick. As she turned back to the burglar, she caught a glimpse of them jumping out the window. Where they insane?! Okay, she was only on the first floor but a fall like that could easily break a limb or two. She however saw them gracefully land on all fours after an impressive back flip and then proceed to run away into the night before she could even think of calling the police. Her eyes widened. What had her life become?

 

Laura leaned on her arms, sprawled across the nerd herd booth, trying desperately not to fall asleep. She couldn’t really get much more sleep yesterday after the whole ‘stranger in her bedroom trying to rob her’ thing, and for the first time she was glad her job required no effort whatsoever most of the time, so she could just, close her eyes, for a second…

Ding.

Damned bell. She whined softly. Ding ding.

“Okay okay, I’m up!” she grumbled.

She couldn’t help but reach over to stop the hand that was making that awful noise just next to her currently very sensitive ears. She expected whoever was making it to be one of her co-workers, who were mostly fat men, perverts, or a winning combination of the two, and who often enjoyed making fun of the Stanford drop out who ended up working with them. But the hand she was touching was small and soft and female.

She had only one female co-worker and she was bigger and older than all her male ones put together. Her head shot up and her cheeks turned red as she saw the girl from yesterday, Carmilla, looking at her with the same amused smirk from the day before.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!”

She quickly pulled her hand away to cover her face in shame.

“You’re always apologising to me, cupcake, when really, I should be the one saying sorry.”

Laura removed her hands from her face to look at her customer puzzled.

“I shouldn’t have just assumed you were into girls. I thought we had a moment but, clearly I was wrong.”

“I am. I mean, you were not.”

The employee answered way too fast.

“I mean I am into girls, and we did have a moment”, she clarified. It was Carmilla’s turn to look confused.

“Then I really don’t understand why you didn’t call.”

She stepped closer to the booth so she could lean against it. Laura scoffed.

“Isn’t it a little presumptuous, to assume someone will call you just because you left them your number?”

“I don’t know...” There goes that smirk again, as she moved just a little closer “...Is it?” She almost whispered, looking into Laura’s eyes.

The girl held her gaze for a couple seconds, a shiver running down her spine, before turning her face to her feet and chuckling slightly.

“Was it revenge for leaving early yesterday? Sorry about that, cupcake, I had an appointment, for a house. I just moved here. In fact, I could really use someone to show me around town. I could buy you dinner, make up for abandoning you so abruptly.”

She paused, her lips quirking up in a half smile as she noticed Laura was staring at her.

“That is, if you want to, of course.”

The other girl grinned as a blush spread on her cheeks and Carmilla had to stop herself from noticing how adorable that was.

“I do. Want to. Very much.”

This time the dark haired girl didn’t stop the matching grin that appeared on her own face.

“It is settled then. How about tonight? I noticed a cute little diner, not too far from here.”

“The Silas diner?” Laura suggested.

“That would be the one. How about I see you there tonight? 7.30 sound good?”

“Sounds perfect” Laura said, grin still in place.

“See you then” Carmilla winked, leaning off the booth and leaving the shop.

Laura stared after her in awe. What just happened?

 

“No.”

“What? Why not?!” Laura said, looking down at her blue shirt and dark grey jeans.

“Because, this is a date” Lafontaine put special emphasis on the last word, “and I love you, L, but we both know they don’t come around often these days. Soooo” They moved to her closet and pulled out a couple summer dresses, “You are going to try these on and I am going to tell you which one looks cuter.”

“Do I have any say at all in this?”

“Nope” Laf said with a smile. Laura couldn’t help smiling back as her friend left the room to give her time to change.

“I think I like this one better” she said, coming out of her room and into the living room where Laf and Perry were sitting on the couch, watching tv.

“Woah” Laf said.

“You look wonderful, sweetie” Perry added with a smile.

“Forget wonderful, Perr, I’d say she looks quite hot.”

Laf gave her a thumbs up. She just smiled and blushed, looking at the floor.

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely.”

The gingers nodded in unison. Laura smiled even brighter before grabbing her purse and leaving.

 

Laura shifted on her feet while standing outside the restaurant, waiting for Carmilla. The other girl was only a few minutes late but that was enough to make Laura rethink the whole evening. She nervously patted down on her white dress as she pondered all the things that might go wrong that night, if Carmilla even showed up at all. She probably wouldn’t. It was probably all just an elaborate joke. Perhaps one of her colleagues set her up to do it, or Laf was playing a prank on her, or-

“Don’t you look like a virgin sacrifice?”

A low, raspy voice whispered in her ear, standing close enough to be invading her personal space and send shivers down her spine. Once again she was caught by surprise by the other girl and couldn’t help the little squeal that escaped her mouth.

“Why must you always do that?!”

Laura complained, before actually looking at the girl, who, she realised, was wearing her usual leather pants with a matching black corset, which-

“Wow.”

“Why, thanks, cutie.”

Carmilla smirked knowingly. Had she said that out loud? Awesome. What is it about this girl that makes her level of dorkiness reach unprecedented highs?

“Sure, I mean, you do look really, well, wow, with the corset and all that leather and-”

She gestured up and down Carmilla’s body while the girl just kept staring at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Right. Should we go in?” She pointed at the door with her thumb.

“I don’t know, cupcake, I’m good if you want to stay here rambling about how wow I look some more.” That was enough to make Laura’s cheeks go bright red. She dropped her head in a vain attempt to hide it and was about to start rambling again before Carmilla cut her off.

“But we should probably go in. Nothing’s stopping you from complimenting me while we are warmer and comfortably seated.” She held the door open for Laura and followed her inside.

 

“No way!” Carmilla exclaimed, smiling at the girl sitting in front of her.

“I swear, I was walking around looking like a Smurf for a week” Laura recalled laughing.

“I’m sure you made a fine Smurfette.”

“Well I think I was still luckier than Perry, she actually turned yellow and it lasted longer for her. Laf still calls her Marge sometimes” Laura said through giggles.

“And this person lives with you?!”

“Yeah but they’re harmless, in fact, they’re quite awesome. They just really like their science and Perry and I just happen to be their favourite guinea pigs” she explained with a smile, which the other girl returned.

“I don’t suppose you have any stories like that, do you?”

“What makes you think I don’t?” Carmilla asked with a raised eyebrow.

“You just don’t strike me as the kind of person who accidentally eats a blueberry muffin and then has to walk around looking like the Genie from Aladdin for a week.”

“Can’t say that I have, you’re right, but, I’ve got my fair share of embarrassing stories.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Not really, no.”

“And why is that?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to lose my air of mystery.”

“Ah, so you do have secrets” Laura teased with a smile.

Carmilla stiffened ever so slightly, so much so that the other girl wondered if she might have just imagined it.

“Because I’ve been trying to figure out what’s wrong with you all night, and I’ve come up empty handed so far.”

Carmilla seemed to relax at that. “Does there have to be something wrong with me, sweetheart?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, why else would you be out here with me? You’re intelligent, funny, insanely attractive, and I’m just…”

“All of those same things?”

Laura was taken aback by how genuine Carmilla had sounded right then, any shred of her usual sarcasm gone from her tone, her eyes filled with honest curiosity. Then of course, her words fully registered and her blush was back full force.

“Seems to me, creampuff, like perhaps there’s something wrong with _you._ ”

Laura looked up at her and opened her mouth ready to defend herself, but Carmilla continued.

“I mean, you are a very bright, very good looking, twenty-something year old, how are YOU not taken already? Are your secrets that dark and terrifying?”

She smirked, a gesture which Laura found annoying and arrogant on any other person but from Carmilla it only served to worsen the swarm of butterflies in her stomach.

“I don’t think so, no. No deep dark secrets here” Laura laughed nervously.

“Really? No magical enchantment that turns you into an ugly ogre at night? Or evil step-mother who locked you in a tower to maintain her eternal youth? No scorned ex-lover ready to haunt me down if I so much as look at you?”

Laura was ready to tease Carmilla on her surprising knowledge of animated pictures when that last sentence caused her to freeze in her action.

The dark haired girl seemed to notice as her playful smile fell. “Sorry, sore topic?”

The concerned tone in Carmilla’s voice made Laura smile a little as she decided to let her walls down.

“No, well, yeah, but it’s okay. I do have an ex, or well, sort of ex, who used to be quite protective of me before she, well..” Laura looked at the other girl’s questioning but kind eyes as she decided to drop the subject.

“You know what? That’s in the past – _she’s_ in the past. I’m here with you now” With a braveness she didn’t know she had, she reached across the table and took Carmilla’s hand that was lying on it.

“And my blue week aside, I do not turn any other colour, and my hair has no healing power whatsoever.”

Carmilla looked at their joined hands for a moment before intertwining their fingers with the most genuine smile Laura had seen on her face.

 

“Are you kidding me?!” Laura turned to the girl walking next to her with wide eyes.

“Afraid not.”

“That is not acceptable – how do you manage to go about life and not watch tv shows?! Not even one? Not even en passent, just leaving the tv on when you cook or something?!”

Carmilla shrugged and smiled at how riled up the other girl seemed to be over this.

“I don’t really cook and I don’t own a television either. I move often, it doesn’t really seem practical.”

Laura was still looking at her like she had three heads, but she didn’t let go of her hand as they walked together on the riverside.

“I will not have this. Next time you’re coming to my place and you are getting educated: I’ll start you off easy, with some Buffy, maybe, you seem like you’d like vampire stories” Laura paused her rambling as she turned to Carmilla and saw a small smile slowly forming on her lips. “What?”

“Next time, uh?”

The tiny girl turned bright red upon realising what she’d said. But Carmilla was smiling so, that was a good sign, right?

“I think I would like that very much” Carmilla squeezed her hand and she couldn’t help the dorkiest grin to spread over her face.

 

 

Somehow they ended up in a club. Carmilla said she liked live music and although Laura didn’t really go out much, the girl had insisted and they found themselves dancing together. Really closely together. Carmilla had her signature smirk on as she moved around Laura with ease. Meanwhile what Laura was doing could barely be described as dancing so much as clumsily swaying as the other girl swirled around sensually and she wondered for the umpteenth time that night if this was actually happening to her. She was so distracted by Carmilla’s moves and her leather pants that she hadn’t even noticed the big guys in suits dropping down like flies around them until Carmilla grabbed her hand suddenly and lead her off the dance floor and out of the club entirely.

“Hey, what’s up?” Laura tried to sound casual but the other girl was acting really strange.

“Give me your keys” she said, looking around frantically as they stood in front of her buymore car.

“You’re really not supposed to drive it if you’re not an employ- how did you do that?!” Laura’s eyes widened as Carmilla opened the door to the driver’s side.

“Get in” she said, still not looking at her.

“What? No! what is happening?”

“Laura. Get in, now!” Carmilla finally looked at her, and the urgency in her eyes as well as the use of her name was all Laura needed to listen to her.

They drove off in a hurry as soon as Laura was seated, and only then did she realise they were being followed by not one, but three other cars. Big black scary cars, approaching fast.

“Carm, I’m kind of freaking out right now. What is happening?”

Carmilla didn’t answer. Instead, she did a very dangerous and very sudden U-turn and kept driving backwards.

“Tell me when to turn.”

The small girl was about to protest but she decided perhaps making sure she didn’t die in a car crash in the next couple minutes was more important at the moment.

“Left in five seconds”

She turned around again just in time before Carmilla made the turn, leading them down a flight of stairs. She saw the black cars that were following them stop on top of the stairs, too big to follow them down, the suited men in them getting out. Laura thought she saw them take guns out but Carmilla drove away fast and then they were out of view.

“I will explain everything. Right now, just, please, trust me” Carmilla anticipated her next question. Or, questions.

They drove a couple more minutes and then got out in a hurry. The dark haired girl grabbed her hand and lead her into an office building, up some stairs, into an elevator, and, finally, on the roof. As she caught her breath, Laura turned to look at her date.

“Okay, what the frilly hell is going on?!”

“How well do you know Danny Lawrence?”

Laura stood silent for a couple seconds. Those were the last words she expected to hear.

“What?”

“Danny Lawrence, tall, red-headed amazon, obnoxiously righteous. I believe she went to college with you. Have you heard from her recently?”

“Danny? I haven’t talked to Danny in forever! And what does she have to do with any of this anyway? Is this some kind of joke? I-”

She turned her gaze down as she suddenly remembered. Wait.

“What? Laura, what is it?”

“The mail”

“What mail?”

Laura finally looked at Carmilla again.

“I hadn’t heard from her in years and then yesterday she sent me this weird mail. I thought it was maybe for my birthday but when I clicked on it, it was just a series of very random, some quite disturbing images and then… I think I fainted” Laura furrowed her eyebrows trying to remember.

“Those images, you saw them?”

“I did. Was I not supposed to? What were they?”

The other girl brought a hand up and massaged her temple.

“Carmilla?” Laura asked, tentatively. “Please say something, I can’t understand anything anymore. How do you know Danny?”

“We work together” the other answered, letting her hand fall back to her side. “Well, kind of. She’s NSA, I’m CIA but for some reason we get paired up more often than I’d like”

“Danny’s a spy?!” Laura half yelled in disbelief. “Wait.. _you’re_ a spy?”

“Yes and yes. Listen cupcake, I’d love to explain this whole thing to you but we really don’t have a lot of time. Do you have that email backed anywhere? A back up drive, a usb, anything?”

Laura shook her head.

“Okay. Well, not okay, but-” Carmilla stopped to listen to something in the distance. Footsteps.

“Shit” She muttered.

“What?”

“They’re coming.”

“Who’s they?”

“The NSA. Okay. I might have to aim my gun at you at some point so just, don’t freak out.”

Before Laura could even fully register the words Carmilla had moved next to her as a man appeared on the roof, coming from the same stairs they had taken. Laura recognised him as one of the men who were following them.

“Scary hottie” He nodded to Carmilla in greeting.

“Kirsch.” Laura noticed her fists were clenched, her eyes not leaving the new comer, as if she was ready to act fast if the need arose.

“Little hottie” Laura was startled at being addressed directly “I am Wilson Kirsch with the NSA. I would like you to come with me for some questioning.”

“She’s not going anywhere.”

“Oh come on, Carm-sexy, you know you have to let her come with me. She’s the only lead I have- the only lead _we_ have to find Danny. Need I remind you she is missing because of your traitor of a partner-“

“Ell is not my partner” She said bitterly.

“Isn’t she? Sorry to say this sexy lady but how do I know you’re not working together? Danny’s last message was sent to that little nerd over there” he pointed to Laura “before we lost any trace of her. How do I know Ell didn’t use her cellphone to send you a message through her?”

“That seems a little too complicated a concept for you, beefcake, don’t hurt yourself.”

Kirsh clenched his jaw and his face hardened.

“Look, I may not actually believe you are a traitor as well but I am not willing to risk it either” he said, pointing his gun at Laura, who gulped audibly, before suddenly feeling a warm body against her back, an arm on her chest holding her in place and – yup, a gun to her head. What was it Carmilla said before, don’t freak out?

“Uhm, Carmilla? Kind of freaking out here” she whispered.

“Come any closer and I shoot her. Ell was one of ours, we need to be the ones to take her down” Carmilla didn’t take her eyes off Kirsch throughout the whole exchange but Laura could hear something behind her words, like a deep sadness, like the sound of a broken promise. She shook her head. Maybe she really was losing her mind.

She suddenly heard police sirens and looked to the streets below them. A flash of images rushed before her eyes and she gasped a little as it ended. Carmilla softened her grip ever so slightly and looked at her with a hint of worry.

“Are you okay?”

“He’s going to die”

“Who?” Kirsch forrowed his brow in confusion.

“General Spieldorf. He is going to walk through that building in about thirty minutes with a bomb strapped to his chest, and kill himself and anyone within a thousand feet of him” Laura nodded in the direction of a big hotel a few streets away.

“How do you know any of this?”

“You guys intercepted the blueprints of a building, that building” she said looking at Kirsh “while you found the schematics of a bomb” she turned to Carmilla, who was still holding her, though much less tightly.

“And I suspect you both know the General’s daughter, Betty, went missing a couple weeks ago” the two spies exchanged looks. “He’s going to walk into that building and kill himself to save her. We have to stop him.” Laura looked into Carmilla’s eyes. She was about to say something when Kirsch lifted his gun against Laura once again.

“You _are_ working with Ell then!”

“She isn’t. She saw the intersect images. I suspect Xena sent it to her before Ell got to her. She’s..” She let go of Laura and lowered her gun “She’s the intersect” She said with a raised eyebrow, as if she couldn’t believe what she was saying herself.

“You’re saying little hottie here is a computer?” Kirsch carefully lowered his gun.

“Technically, she just has one in her head. But, yes.”

“Cool” He said with a dopey grin which for a moment reminded Laura of a giant puppy, before recomposing himself.

“So, this bomb. How do we stop it?”

 

The three of them ran to the entrance of the building before walking through the door and trying to slow down. Act like there isn’t a US General with a bomb that could blow the whole place up any second. They quickly found the control room and locked the door behind them.

“Where’s the girl, computer hottie?” Laura watched the screens and pointed to a door not far from them that lead to the basement. “On it” Kirsch said, heading that way to go free Betty.

“I am going to go find the General. If your information is right, he should have to walk through this corridor” Carmilla pointed on one of the small tv screens “before getting to the big room where he supposedly will, you know, go kaboom on the place. So if I can intercept him here, there should be a corner between those hallways with no camera coverage and I should be able to talk to the General and de-activate the bomb before he gets to the main room.”

Laura nodded and got up from her seat.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Coming with you.”

Carmilla shook her head. “Oh no cupcake, you’re not doing that. You have this nation’s entire computer database in that pretty little head of yours and I’m not letting it get blown up. What you’re going to do is take this” she handed her a tablet that showed the hotel cameras’ feed “and you’re going to leave this building and, I don’t know, go wait in the car or something.”

Laura couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

“Wait in the car? Seriously? Have you ever seen a film in which somebody who has to wait in the car actually-“

“Cupcake. We’re kind of on a tight timetable here.”

“Right. Sorry. Wait in the car.” Laura couldn’t help but pout a little.

 

And there she was, waiting in the car as instructed, and itching to just run inside the hotel she just came from. From her tablet she could see Kirsch was helping a weak but relatively okay Betty out the basement after having kicked quite a few guys’ asses. She smiled as she saw them get out of the building in one piece. Looking back down though, her smile quickly disappeared as she saw what was happening in the main room. Carmilla had apparently managed to reach the General and supposedly disable the bomb as they were both walking towards the exit. But just as they were about to reach the door a man wearing a sky mask stood in the middle of the room with a gun pointed at them.

“I see you’ve defused our General” his voice came out muffled from the material covering his mouth.

“But I am pretty sure a bullet in his chest could still make the place go boom.”

He was about to pull the trigger when the whole room went black. A shot was fired but it didn’t reach the general as Carmilla had shoved him on the floor before jumping blindly to where the shooter had been a second ago. When the lights came back on, Carmilla was sitting on the man’s back, holding his hands behind him. As she looked up she saw Laura holding the tablet with a sheepish smile.

“It looked like you might have needed the help.”

“Well aren’t you full of surprises, cutie” Carmilla smirked.

Kirsch looked at Laura with his mouth open for a second before grinning at her and giving her a thumbs up. He must’ve run back inside when he heard the commotion. Laura turned around and saw Betty and her father hugging.

 

The drive back to her place was silent, and when Carmilla parked in front of her street she didn’t really know if she should just walk out and go to sleep and enjoy her last hours of freedom before the government decided to lock her up somewhere until they got their secrets out of her head.

“Can I walk you to your door?” Carmilla broke her train of thought.

“Sure” she gave her a small smile, exiting the car.

They walked in silence on the sidewalk, and then on the stairs that led to her courtyard before stopping.

“What’s going to happen to me?” Her voice sounded weaker than she had intended. Carmilla turned to stand in front of her.

“For now, you go back to your old life, your old job. Don’t mention this to anyone. Not even your ginger friends.”

Laura was about to ask her how she knew about Laf and Perry but she continued “We do our research, cupcake. But, speaking of…”

Carmilla walked towards her, forcing her to walk backwards until she felt the wall of the courtyard behind her. The spy leaned into her, one hand against the wall, next to Laura’s head, as she whispered. “They’re watching.”

Laura looked behind Carmilla and, sure enough, two red heads were looking out their living room window, poorly hidden by the outside plants. She rolled her eyes a little with a smile. Of course they are.

Carmilla lifted her other hand up and gently brushed Laura’s cheek with her fingers. “Laura?”

“Mm?”

“Trust me”

Laura wasn’t sure if it was a question, an order, or a plead, but as she stared in those deep dark eyes that she had only known for a couple of days, she realised in that moment, she felt safe. She did trust this mysterious girl she knew absolutely nothing about. Even though she didn’t really know why. So she just nodded and Carmilla gave her the most beautiful smile she had ever seen.

“Are the dimwits still watching?”

Laura glanced behind her and nodded again.

“Well, cupcake, we did just get back from a date” she leaned in but stopped just a breath away from Laura’s lips. “May I?” Again, the shorter girl could just give her a small nod.

Their lips met in the softest kiss Laura had ever experienced. Carmilla’s fingers brushed her cheek again as she slowly pulled back. She stared into the other’s eyes before taking her hand off the wall and straightening up.

“Goodnight, Laura” She said, staring to walk backwards.

“Goodnight, Carmilla.”


	2. Laura vs. The Waltz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to justmyluckiness who kindly offered to be my beta!

“Hey nerd hottie!” Kirsch greeted her with a smile as she parked her bike outside the Buy More. She gave him a look at the unappreciated nickname and he gave her an apologetic smile. He was wearing the shop’s green polo and kaki’s and – wait.

“Kirsch? Do you work here now?”

“Yup!” He grinned, his hands on his hips. Then he looked around, lowering his head, and whispered. “It’s my cover. See?” He flicked at his nametag. It read ‘Brody Kirsch’ instead of Wilson. Didn’t they say he was one of the best spies the NSA had?

“That’s great, Kirsch” She gave him her most genuine smile.

“It is! And the green brings out my eyes. Could’ve been much worse.” He nodded towards the other side of the street and Laura saw a girl cleaning out some tables at the new shop that opened recently. Only when the girl turned to face her did she recognise her.

“Carmilla?” The spy looked up at Laura from the opposite sidewalk and smirked in her direction with a small wave before walking into the shop.

Laura shook her head in disbelief, crossing the street and following her inside.

“Cupcake, cupcake?” Carmilla smirked at her again from behind the counter, holding up some sweets for her.

“You work at a bakery now? Perry’s competition nonetheless.”

“We needed a close-by place so that I could keep a better eye on you” Carmilla just shrugged and put the pastries away after Laura grabbed a chocolate muffin.

“You look really cute by the way” Laura smiled from behind her snack. Carmilla was wearing a white tank top and matching shorts, with a small pink apron around her waist and you could almost feel her disdain for the outfit radiating off her body. She rolled her eyes.

“I’m just really committed to my job. Speaking of, you should probably get to yours before the meathead pops a vein” she nodded towards the window from where they could see Kirsch standing outside the Buy More, eyeing them suspiciously.

“What’s up with that anyway?”

Carmilla gave her a puzzled look and a raised eyebrow.

“What do you mean?”

“That strange frenemy thing you guys have got going on” Laura explained, gesturing between the two spies.

“The NSA and the CIA don’t really get along that well, but sometimes they’re forced to, because they work for the same greater good. Me and the beefcake have a very similar relationship.” She explained.

Laura nodded in understanding. “Anyway, I better go. See you later.” She turned to leave but Carmilla called her back.

“Laura wait. How about another date tonight? So I can catch you up a bit on how things work, now that you’re working for the same greater good.”

“Yeah, sure” Laura couldn’t help but feel a little nervous at the idea of another date with Carmilla, although she knew it was just business.

“Great. See you at eight.”

 

 

“What was that about?” Kirsch looked down at her, standing in front of the Nerd Herd booth with his arms crossed.

“What was what about?”

“What did Carmilla want?” he made sure to add extra spite when saying the other spy’s name.

Laura rolled her eyes at him, “Nothing, just to say she’ll be working at the cupcake shop for a while and anyway, if you’re both going to stick around I’d rather not have to deal with this petty competition between agencies you’ve got going on.”

“This is not about some petty competition, Laura” his tone was suddenly serious, his stare piercing as he let his arms fall to his sides, his hands gripping the counter. “You don’t know her like I do. She and her partner used to be thick as thieves, and as much as I hate to think of the possibility, they could still be working together. I’m just saying, don’t be so quick to trust her.”

Laura was taken aback and left slightly speechless by Kirsch’s sudden change of demeanour, and she was about to retort when she got distracted by someone walking up to the booth.

“Hey frosh!” Laf smiled warmly at her before noticing she was talking to someone. “Oh shoot sorry, am I interrupting anything?”

Kirsch turned his attention to them and smiled so goofily Laura wondered if she had just imagined the heaviness in his voice and features just a few seconds before.

“Not at all. Hello, I am Kirsch. _Brody_ Kirsch.” He added, putting his hand out for LaF to shake as he did.

“Nice to meet you, _Brody_ Kirsch” they grinned, “I’m Lafontaine, Laura’s flatmate/best friend/person who experiments on her in her sleep.”

“Ah ah, very funny” Laura’s eyes widened for a second “You were joking right?”

Laf simply chuckled in response.

“Well, it was nice meeting you science person. Nerd hotti- lady.” Kirsch nodded his goodbyes as he went back to the electronics department. But, before he turned the corner, he called back “And Laura, think about what I said.”

Laura just gave him a small nod before turning her attention back to her friend.

“What was that about?” Laf inquired.

“Uhm, nothing, just a silly debate on Halo 3. What are you doing here anyway?”

“Perry insisted she needs a new pair of electronic whisks even though I told her time and time again that I could easily modify ours and make them better than anything she can find in this place. No offence.”

They offered an apologetic smile before continuing.

“Plus, I was kind of hoping to meet this new girlfriend of yours.”

“Now, _that_ I can believe” Laura smiled at her friend, “But you’re out of luck, she’s working right now.”

“Damn, that’s too bad. But I won’t give up. I need to make sure she’s good enough for you and give her an intimidating speech or something.”

The thought of Laf trying to scare Carmilla away with menacing scientific terms made her giggle.

“Yeah, yeah. Kitchen equipment is in the second aisle on the right.”

“This isn’t over! I will meet your mystery girl, Hollis, mark my words!” they said walking away, as Laura smiled.

Turning away from her friend’s retreating figure, she looked to her left and frowned in confusion. The aforementioned mystery girl was perusing through the dvd aisle with a bored expression on her face, but she suspected she had been watching the exchange. Didn’t she just leave Carmilla at her shop? How was she here so fast and why did it really matter when she was smiling and waving at her like she was the only girl in the whole place and walking over to her. Oh crap, she was walking over.

“Hey” Laura greeted her with a shy smile “Miss me already?”

Carmilla smiled her beautiful smile and put a small paper bag on the Nerd Herd booth in front of her.

“You forgot your muffin” she said, leaning into the counter. “Now kiss me.”

“What?!” Laura whisper-yelled, eyes wide.

“We’re dating, creampuff. Gotta keep up appearances.”

After a moment, the Buy More employee stood on her tip toes and softly kissed the girl’s cheek. She could feel Carmilla smile and the butterflies that simple fact awoke in her stomach led her to linger just a little too long, until someone cleared their throat and she jumped away as if she’d been caught with her hands in the cookie jar before dinner.

“Laf! Hey! Did you, uhm... Did you find the... whisks. Did you find the whisks?” Laura’s face was bright red and she was looking anywhere but at Carmilla, who just casually leaned off the booth, sporting her usual satisfied smirk, before offering her hand to Laf, who was enjoying her friend’s embarrassment with an amused smile.

“Hey, I’m Carmilla.”

The scientist looked at Laura and then back at the dark haired girl before shaking her hand.

“Lafontaine.”

“Pleasure to meet you. I heard so much about you.” Carmilla let go of their hand and winked at Laura, who was still attempting to bring her face back to a human colour.

“Well I for one have not heard enough about you. In fact, Perry and I would _love_ to have you over one of these days” They said with a wicked grin.

Laura’s head shot up. “I’m sure Carmilla is very busy what with her just moving here and-”

“I would love to”, the other girl cut her off.

“Awesome! You could come to board game night next Friday.”

“Sounds awesome” Laura knew board games were probably pretty low on the list of Carmilla’s favourite ways to spend the night but she managed to sound pretty convincing. Then again, she was a professional liar after all.

“See you then” Lafontaine said before walking away and leaving the store for good.

“Who knew you’d find board games so _awesome_ ” Laura teased with a smile.

“As I said, gotta keep up appearances” Carmilla gave her a small smile “which unfortunately means I should probably get back to my fake job before getting really fired. See you tonight, sweetheart.” And with that she was gone.

Laura caught herself staring at the entrance of the store with a dopey expression even after the girl had left. _Worst crush ever._

She shook her head and went back to work, but less than 30 seconds later she heard a loud noise coming from the employees’ kitchen. She quickly walked over and coughed a little at all the smoke. She saw Kirsch standing dumbstruck, his hands and face black from something exploding she guessed? He gave her a look but another couple of employees walked in before he could say anything.

“I really should remember to take my lunch out of the plastic bag before microwaving it” He gave them an apologetic smile and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. The two rolled their eyes and exited the room. She heard them tell the other people that had gathered in the hallway that ‘it was a false alarm, the new guy is just an idiot’.

“I am guessing all of this wasn’t actually caused by your subway sandwich?” Laura gestured between him and the black spot on the wall where the store’s microwave used to be, its remains resting on the floor between them.

“More like by your sneaky girlfriend” He retorted, trying to clean his face with the back of his hand but only making it worse.

“Carmilla? Why would she do that?”

“I told you, she might still be working with Ell. And taking me out would make it that much easier to grab you and take you straight to her.”

“Listen, Kirsch, I get that you have your differences, but that doesn’t mean she’d try to _kill_ you.”

Laura couldn’t help but feel defensive of the girl. Other than Kirsch’s apparent dislike for her, she’d given them no reason not to trust her.

”That microwave was older than I am and I don’t know if you’ve noticed but the people who work here aren’t exactly criminal masterminds, perhaps someone just-”

She stopped in her tracks as Kirsch picked up what appeared to be a half exploded pen from the ground.

“This was not an accident” He held it up in front of her, probably knowing it would trigger an Intersect flash.

“That’s…”

“A CIA incinerator. Pocket sized.” Kirsch grimaced.

“Okay, that is… suspicious, and strangely coincidental, but that doesn’t mean Carmilla put it there.”

“Doesn’t it? She was literally _just_ here, I saw you two talking after I left you with your friend. You know what’s funny though? I never saw her come in.”

Laura thought about it. She saw Carmilla at the cupcake shop, and then she saw her inside the Buy More. In the dvd aisle. Which just so happened to connect the kitchen to her booth. Aaaand there goes Laura’s faith in her fake girlfriend.

 

 

“Another date, uh? Aren’t you moving a little fast, young lady?”

Laf teased, taking a seat on Laura’s bed as she put on a cocktail dress for the night, which the NSA kindly provided. Kirsch told her despite what they had discovered about their partner, she had to act like everything was okay, and they still needed her to go to this fancy ball thing to intercept some kind of intel, or drug lord, or art thief? Laura’s mind wasn’t really focused on that as much as the fact that she was about to go on a date with a killer who wanted to kidnap her and steal information from her head. She gulped.

“Earth to Frosh? You okay?”

Laura turned towards her friend and put on her best fake smile.

“Yeah, just nervous” She answered honestly, although for entirely different reasons than Laf could understand.

“Don’t be. I saw how she looked at you this morning, she’s totally into you. Which, go you, by the way! She seems nice and she is really gorgeous” they gave her a thumbs up.

Laura forced another smile. “That, she is.” And really lethal, she added in her mind.

 

When she walked out of her building’s entrance, she found Carmilla waiting for her in what looked like a very expensive sports car. She was sitting on the driver’s side and got out to open Laura’s door as soon as she saw her.

“Hey, cupcake” she gave her a small smile.

“Hey-“

Laura’s eyes darted towards Carmilla’s black dress and she suddenly felt dizzy as a flash of images appeared before her eyes. A dark alley. A man- No, a group of men. Someone fighting them off. They fell to the floor, one by one. Only a man remained, kneeling down before his attacker, begging to be spared. The attacker raised their gun to his head and shot him right between the eyes, without so much as blinking, before taking their mask off.

“Carmilla” Laura heard herself say, between a gasp and a whisper. She quickly tried to recompose herself and hide her sudden panic and she sat in the passenger’s seat and waited for her date to get back in the car.

“You okay? I usually have to beg you to shut up but now I realise, silence from you is quite eerie” the spy gave her a small smile but there was a hint of worry in her eyes as she glanced at Laura, sitting next to her.

“I’m peachy!” Her voice sounded at least ten octaves higher than usual and Carmilla raised an eyebrow at her. “I am, it’s just… what’s the mission again?”

“We’re going to an art auction, where we believe an infamous thief by the name of La Ciudad has made arrangements to sell one of Monet’s Water Lily paintings to one of the attendants. Now, we unfortunately do not have any picture of La Ciudad on record, except for…”

“…on the Intersect” Laura finished her sentence.

“Right. But, look, if you’re worried, don’t be. You have no reason to. You just point us to the bad guys and we’ll do all the work. And I’ll be by your side the whole time.”

Carmilla gave her hand a squeeze in what was meant to be a reassuring gesture, but it only made Laura’s anxiety grow stronger. Sensing the other girl’s still present discomfort, the spy put her hand back on the wheel and tried a new approach to distract her.

“However, you will probably need an alias of some sorts. Something simple, ideally pretty close to the truth so you don’t mess up too easily.”

“How about Lois Lane? Or, or, Buffy Summers? Or-“

“Lauronica Mars” Carmilla deadpanned, and Laura was about to say that was a great suggestion before reading the sarcasm in her companion’s eyes.

“The people at these kind of events may be pompous jerks but they’re not complete lackwits. Or well, they are, but, better not risk blowing your cover because you introduced yourself as someone’s favourite fictional character.”

Laura crossed her arms, huffing. Mostly because she knew Carmilla had a point.

“How about Jane Smith then?”

“Now you’re not even trying.” Carmilla chuckled.

“Clara” Laura suddenly said with a serious tone, her eyes on her feet. “Clara Williams.”

The spy considered it for a second.

“Short. Simple. Easy to remember yet common enough not to stand out. I think we have a winner.” She smiled at Laura, parking their car.

 

 

As they stood in the huge ballroom, with Carmilla’s protective hand on the small of her back, Laura was once again very aware that the girl standing next to her was a cold blooded killer who was most likely waiting for the opportunity to get rid of Kirsch and kidnap her to take her to her evil ex partner. This made concentrating on having Intersect flashes a little bit harder than normal.

“Still nothing?” Carmilla asked. She shook her head in response.

“Okay, this isn’t working. You need to have a closer look at this people, you won’t be able to recognise anyone if we just stand here all night.” She reached out her hand “Dance with me.”

Laura’s eyes widened and she shot Kirsch a terrified look in a desperate plea for help. He was standing on the other side of the room, posing as security, and he just shrugged in her direction. She could almost hear him say ‘sorry bro’ in her head.

“I-I’m really not much of a dancer. And I definitely don’t know how to waltz.” Laura looked around, trying to find a way out of dancing in very closed quarters with a trained killer.

“Don’t worry, cupcake. Just follow my lead.” Carmilla smirked, as Laura tentatively put her hand in hers, and led them in the middle of the ballroom.

She intertwined their fingers. “Partners need to be face to face” she pulled her closer til their fronts touched.

“Chest to chest”, she whispered, as they started moving.

Laura’s feet followed almost on their own accord as she found herself staring into Carmilla’s deep brown eyes. How could someone who was supposedly so bad have such kind eyes? She still wanted to trust those eyes.

“Laura?”

She heard her whisper.

“I’m going to whirl you around a bit so you can get a better look at everybody, okay?”

Laura was suddenly awoken from her trance and nodded a little too vehemently and that was all the warning she got before Carmilla spun her around. She tried to concentrate on the faces of other dancers and bystanders instead of the feeling of Carmilla’s body close to her every time she pulled her back in, and how she found herself missing the contact every time she spun her away again.

They had been dancing for at least ten minutes and all Laura was getting was a terrible pain in her feet. She was about to tell Carmilla they might as well give up when she noticed a dark figure standing next to a wall in the back of the room. She recognised the lightheaded feeling that accompanied every flash even before it hit her. She suddenly stopped dancing.

“There.” She pointed to the guy she’d just flashed on. Carmilla exchanged a look with Kirsch, who was now on the furthest side of the room, as she sprinted toward the man who must’ve noticed he’d been seen, because he started running through a hallway behind him.

Carmilla reached for the gun stripped to her thigh and was already sprinting after him when she turned back to Laura.

“Go wait in the car!”

The small girl rolled her eyes but did as she was told.

 

Laura sighed in frustration and sheer boredom as she kept playing with the radio, waiting for the two spies to come out of the building. It had been a good ten minutes since she exited the ballroom but she hadn’t heard from either of them. Perhaps they were too busy fighting bad guys to keep her updated, she realised.

She was about to leave the car and go look for them inside when she saw a few tall men in dark suits carrying somebody out, exiting a door on the side of the building. She recognised the black dress and dark curls immediately; Carmilla!

She must’ve been unconscious as she didn’t seem to even flinch when they put her in the trunk of a car and started driving away. Without giving it a second thought, Laura jumped to the driver’s side and started following the car. Kirsch had told her a good tail always stayed far enough that they’d never be seen, but could always see everything. She tried to remember his tips as she followed the car through narrow streets and shady neighbours, but she was clearly doing a poor job and she was soon spotted and lost the car after following it for a good half hour. She kept driving around another thirty minutes before giving up and getting back to the art exposition.

Kirsch gave her an earful about leaving him to go after some unidentified criminals, alone, with no backup and without even warning him first, but he let go and lowered his tone when he realised how bad Laura felt about the whole thing.

“I’m sorry, little hottie. I was wrong. It was a trap. As soon as Carmilla followed the guy you identified as La Ciudad into an empty hallway, she was ambushed and rendered unconscious by at least two other dudes. I ran after them as quick as I could but it all happened so fast, they had her in the trunk and were driving away before I could even take the plate.”

He lowered his face for a moment before looking back at Laura and squeezing her shoulder gently.

“Hey. We’ll find her.”

Laura nodded weakly and accepted Kirsch’s offer to drive her home. She came in through her window; she knew Laf and Perry would probably be up waiting to hear about her fantastic second date and she really wasn’t in the mood to lie. It’s not like she could tell them ‘oh you know, at first I thought she wanted to kidnap and kill me but it turns out she actually wasn’t! She was being genuinely sweet and I treated her like shit and then, surprise, she’s the one who gets kidnapped and-‘ Laura stopped herself from even thinking that last part. She curled up on her bed but she knew she wasn’t going to get much sleep anyway.

She stayed in that position for a good ten seconds before jolting back up and grabbing her phone.

“Kirsch, are you still close? Turn around. Let’s go get Carmilla back.”

 

The drive was silent, except for the occasional update Kirsch got or gave to his bosses about Carmilla’s whereabouts. They had managed to find out she was being held somewhere at the docks, most likely in one of the many abandoned storage units. So when they pulled up, Laura sprinted out of the car, ready to follow Kirsch, but he stopped her, shaking his head.

“Laura, I know you want to save her, but-“

“If you tell me to wait in the car, I swear to God-“

“I’m sorry, but you have to. You are too valuable. I promise I will bring her back but, you just…” He gently pushed her back inside and locked the door behind him before taking out his gun and leaving with a team of agents.

Laura huffed and crossed her arms. When she looked out the window to her right she saw one of the suited men that had been carrying Carmilla get into one of the units. She turned to her left, where Kirsch and his NSA team had gone, and reached for her phone to call him back. When she heard ‘Seasons of Love’ playing somewhere in the car it took her a second to realise it was his ringtone. Of course he left the phone in the car.

Laura rolled her eyes and tried to shake the door handle open but it didn’t budge. She then realised this wasn’t a regular car, it was NSA issued. Which meant, it was highly technological. Which meant, it was highly hackable! Laura grinned when just with a few touches on the small screen next to the wheel her door clicked opened, and she rushed out of the car and into the unit she saw the man go in.

She was extra careful not to make any noise when entering, but when she saw Carmilla tied to a chair in the middle of the room, apparently alone, she immediately rushed to her.

“Oh my gosh, Carm! Are you okay? Is that a cut on your forehead? I am so sorry I doubted you, Kirsch talked me into the idea that you were a spy and- well you are a spy but, you know, a double spy and I-“ Laura looked at Carmilla’s raised eyebrow and incredulous expression and realised how this was probably the worst time for one of her endless rambles.

“Right. Save first, talk ears off later. So, what do I do?”

Carmilla looked to her own mouth and for a second Laura thought she was having some kind of attack and was going to faint right then and there, but then she realised the spy had tape on her mouth. She grabbed it and yanked it away, earning a grimace from the other girl.

“Sorry”

“Cupcake, what the _hell_ are you doing here?”

“I came with Kirsch. I wanted to rescue you since I’m kind of the reason you were kidnaped in the first place.”

Carmilla rolled her eyes. “Didn’t the beefcake tell you to stay in the car?”

Laura gave her a sheepish smile.

“Right. Dumb question. Well since you’re here, untie me before-“

They heard noises coming from a back room.

“Dammit” The spy grumbled as Laura loosened the rope tying her chest to the back of the chair. She went to untie the one around her ankles too.

“Laura get out of here before they see you!”

The short girl finished loosening the rope, making sure it still looked like it was holding, and started to run towards the door when she realised she was still holding the tape that used to be on Carmilla’s mouth. She swiftly ran back and put it back on the spy’s lips before jumping to hide behind a crate right as the man in the suit came out of the back room.

“Miss Karnstein. I hope you’re feeling more cooperative. I really am not too fond of all this violence.” The way he was holding a baton and passing it from one hand to another seemed to suggest otherwise.

“But you know I won’t hesitate to use it if you don’t start talking” Laura flinched when he hit his palm with it with a loud clap but Carmilla didn’t show any reaction even as he teared the tape off her mouth.

“Where is the Intersect?”

He asked slowly. When the spy didn’t even acknowledge his question, he hit her with the baton right in the stomach. Laura looked away as Carmilla coughed and she saw blood fall from her lips. She was protecting _her_. Laura felt a weight on her stomach as she fought the tears in her eyes.

“WHERE IS SHE?” He moved to stand right in front of her, holding the baton close to her face.

Carmilla spit out some blood and slowly lifted her head to meet his gaze.

“Bite. Me.” He grunted as he lifted his hand, ready to hit her in the face.

“NO!” Laura yelled and immediately covered her mouth with both hands. The man and Carmilla both looked to her, she just stood there, petrified. He moved closer to her, his back to the tied up spy, and gave Laura an almost animalistic look that made her want to shrink into herself and disappear completely.

“And who might you be?” He asked with a malevolent grin, stepping closer and closer.

Laura frowned. Wasn’t she the one he was torturing Carmilla for?

She was stopped in her thoughts as the spy jumped on the man from behind, having freed herself from the rope and now strangling him with it. Laura could do little but watch as Carmilla struggled not to get shoved off, which she eventually did has he grabbed her hands from around his throat and pushed her to the ground in front of him. He was about to kick her when a shot came from the door and he fell unconscious. Kirsch came in, putting his gun away and walking towards them.

“Everyone okay?”

Laura looked at Carmilla and nodded weakly.

“Good. Let’s take you home.”

 

Laura was curled up on her bed, holding onto her yellow pillow, eyes wide open. Despite it being almost 4 AM, she felt completely awake as she went over all the events of the night in her head. Everything that happened since her birthday had been absolutely insane, and part of her was still convinced she would wake up from this crazy spy themed dream any moment now and laugh about how creative her subconscious had been. She sighed; if only she had really made this all up. Then she could easily make things right with Carmilla and chase away this horrible, guilty feeling that was keeping her up at this ungodly hour.

She heard a tap on her window, and then another one. And another one. She knew the wind couldn’t have that steady a rhythm so she slowly got up and looked down to the courtyard, only to find Carmilla throwing pebbles in her direction. Any other day, she would’ve smiled at how cliché and romantic the gesture seemed, but tonight she was still feeling the weight of what happened, of what could have happened to the spy because of her. So she just forced a small smile and waved a little before opening the window, waiting for the other girl to climb in, which she gracefully did in a swift movement.

“Hey”

“Hey” Laura’s voice was unsure. She silently watched Carmilla come in the room, closing the window behind her.

“Are you okay?” Laura walked up to the spy and held a hand up to her face, not quite touching her. She had a cut above her left eyebrow and small cuts and bruises on her cheek and mouth too. Carmilla shifted away from her, waving her off.

“No, Laura. I am not okay!” She whispered in order not to wake the other inhabitants of the house but the shorter girl was taken aback by her cold tone and piercing stare.

“I-I am sorry, Carm! I really had no idea that it would be a trap-“

“You think I care about that? Throwing myself into dangerous situations is my job, I know very well what I signed up for.”

Laura gave her a confused look.

“How could you think that I would betray you? And what, sell you out for money?” Carmilla’s tone started sounding less angry and more hurt and Laura felt a pang of guilt in her stomach. She stared at her feet, she couldn’t bare to hold the girl’s gaze.

“I thought you were a killer. I saw you kill some men, in cold blood.”

“Well guess what, cupcake: I am a killer!”

Laura’s eyes shot up.

“Not my favourite part of the job, but a pretty big part nonetheless. As is lying, to protect yourself, and others. You think Carmilla’s my real name? I never asked you to believe me, I asked you to _trust_ me. And you put yourself and others in danger because you didn’t!”

Heavy silence fell. As much as Laura wanted to respond, for once in her life she was speechless. She just looked at the spy with tearful eyes for a few seconds before Carmilla sighed.

“I have to go give my report” she walked to the window and opened it. She didn’t look back as she jumped out of it and disappeared in the night.

 

The next day was kind of a haze. Laura got up early – not like she got much sleep, anyway – and left before Lafontaine or Perry woke up, not feeling up to lying to them about her night. She made pancakes and left them for her friends, hoping they wouldn’t be too upset she left without saying goodbye.

Her day at the Buy More passed by without anything interesting happening, leaving her plenty of time to dwell on her conversation with Carmilla some more. She didn’t see either of the spies all day, though she suspected they were watching her, just from afar. Still, she appreciated the illusion of privacy.

As she walked into her courtyard after work, she saw the door to the house next to hers was open and she couldn’t help her curiosity. She walked closer to hopefully catch a glimpse of her new neighbours. A tall man carrying a box so big it covered his face walked past her and into the place, but when he turned around and walked back out her jaw dropped.

“Kirsch?”

“Little nerd!” He was trying not to call Laura hottie anymore after she expressed her distaste for the word. She appreciated the effort.

“What exactly are you doing?”

She knew the answer but she hoped she was wrong.

“I’m your new neighbour!”

She was not wrong. She didn’t dislike Kirsch, he was sweet in his own way and he seemed like he did genuinely care about her, he wasn’t just following orders. But this was the last space in her life that had not been invaded by the government yet, and she liked it that way.

“I see” she simply stated.

Kirsch frowned.

“Don’t worry, Laura, I’ll stay out of your way. You won’t even know I’m here.” He gave her one of his dopey smiles and picked the last box up.

“Your date’s here by the way. Have a good night!” He said before walking in and shutting the door behind him.

Laura turned around and saw Carmilla standing at the end of the courtyard, as far away as she could, studying her warily. She tried to mentally prepare herself to another scolding before walking closer. The other girl met her halfway.

“Hey cupcake.”

Laura gave a little smile at the nickname, relief washing over her. If Carmilla was calling her nicknames, it meant she probably wasn’t that mad anymore, right?

“I am so sorry, Carm, I was so stupid, and reckless. I should’ve never just jumped to conclusions and trusted Kirsch and I- I put you in danger, which, I know you said was okay, but it really wasn’t okay. You’ve been nothing but nice to me – well in your own way, and-“

She suddenly shut up when she felt a hand on her arm, squeezing gently.

“Laura. Relax.” Carmilla gave her a small smile, which she returned, before letting go of her arm.

“I am sorry too. I didn’t mean to be so cold last night.”

“You had every right to. Plus, it was our first fight. Very important step in our relationship. I mean, if it were even remotely real.”

Carmilla’s lips quirked up for a moment, but then she turned serious again.

“Listen… I know this is difficult. I know _I_ am difficult. And I can’t promise you I won’t ever lie to you again. There are things that I couldn’t tell you, even if I wanted to. Because that is my job, and I take it very seriously.”

She bit her lip before adding “But my job is also to protect you, and that is exactly what I intend to do, always. That, I can promise you.”

They stared into each other’s eyes for a few seconds before Carmilla turned around and started walking away.

“Carm?” The spy stopped in her tracks and looked back at her.

“For what it’s worth, I do trust you.”

She smiled again and disappeared into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know in the comments what you liked about the chapter - or if you liked it at all!  
> I am not a writer so I value feedback all the more. :)


	3. Laura vs. The Brother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura and Carmilla keep pretending to be girlfriends. And it's totally just pretending. On both parts. 100%. Meanwhile Laura tries to find out something more about the elusive spy, and a guest appearance from someone from Carmilla's past might be just what she needs.

Carmilla’s laugh was Laura’s new favourite sound. She couldn’t help but stare at the girl sitting next to her, holding her close with an arm around her shoulders as she charmed her best friends with most likely made up yet highly entertaining anecdotes about her childhood. Or teenage years. Or general life, maybe? Laura found it difficult to concentrate on her words. She had only ever heard Carmilla chuckle before, or snicker sarcastically, but she loved this social version of the spy. If she tried hard enough, she could pretend this was her actual girlfriend, having an actually nice double date with the other two most important people in her life. Laura couldn’t help but grin at the thought.

“You okay there, creampuff?” Carmilla squeezed her shoulder lightly, lowering her voice as Laf and Perry were momentarily distracted, bickering about what film to watch.

Laura rolled her eyes at the familiar sight. They did this almost every night. She turned back to Carmilla, giving her a warm smile.

“I am. This - okay, don’t laugh. But this is kind of perfect.”

Carmilla gave her a loving smile that only served to fuel her fantasy further. She looked like she was about to say something but instead she leaned closer and planted a small kiss on Laura’s head.

Laf coughed, turning the girls’ attention back to them.

“So, we can’t decide on a movie since _somebody_ is being extra picky, as usual” They glanced at Perry.

“You know I am not comfortable with gratuitous violence.”

“How is Pitch Perfect violent?!”

“I seem to recall a fighting scene after the regionals. _And_ some very unpleasant, not to mention unsanitary, taco throwing” Perry seemed to actually shiver at the thought.

Laf shrugged. “The only thing she hasn’t vetoed is Frozen” They held up the dvd.

“YES!” “Not a chance.”

Laura frowned, turning to Carmilla.

“You’re cute, but not _that_ cute” That earned her a light punch in the arm.

“I will get you to watch Disney films with me, you know.”

“I never said I despised all of them. Just, most of them.” The dark haired girl seemed to ponder for a second. “Okay, maybe I’d save a couple.”

Laura decided instead of being indignant for the unforgivable statement, she would make it her mission to discover which films the girl was talking about. And only then she’d force her to watch all the others until she admitted they were equal masterpieces. She was about to say all of this when she noticed Carmilla was looking out the window, distracted by something.

“Hey. Are _you_ okay?”

Carmilla turned to look at her and smirked.

“Everything’s just _perfect_ , sweetheart.”

Laura rolled her eyes, and then looked over at her ginger friends who were still going through their dvd collection, trying to agree on a film.

“You know, we could always just go back to playing Pictionary if-“

“Oh, no way!” Laf interrupted her. “These two were about to rip each other’s heads off earlier.”

Carmilla and Perry did end up getting surprisingly competitive over the game. She suspected the ginger held a grudge over Carmilla working at another bakery, but she would never show it. Other than passive aggressively trying to beat her at board games, that is.

“But how about a game where nobody wins?” Laf perked up with a mischievous grin “Truth or dare, anyone?”

Laura immediately looked at the girl sitting next to her. She normally didn’t like this kind of games, they always made her feel like she was boring only because she didn’t have crazy adventures to tell. And now that she does, she can’t share them, she realised. Karma has a sense of humour.

However, this time she was quite excited to play. This would be a great chance to perhaps try to get some intel on the ever so mysterious brooding spy who seemed to remain a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. They’d been fake-dating for a couple of weeks now, and had gone on a handful of missions already, and still Laura knew as much about her as she did the first day they met. In other words, nothing. And since that conversation they had after Carmilla almost died because of her, she had been careful not to overstep boundaries and to be respectful of the girl’s wishes. She was still a journalist at her core though, and all the not knowing was eating away at her slowly. And, she felt like this was just the loophole in her promise she had been hoping for.

Boy, was she wrong. Carmilla avoided the gingers’ questions with ease, and never failed to ask for a dare every time it was Laura’s turn, her smirk growing wider as the tiny ball of rage’s impatience grew stronger. And when it was her turn to ask, she made sure to uncover every single embarrassing thing Laura had ever done, which, let’s be honest, were a lot, and Laf was happily sharing them all.

“Have you ever been in love?”

The scientist’s question seemed to take the spy by surprise, and Laura was taken aback by how small but serious her voice sounded when she answered.

“…I have.”

Carmilla’s eyes were fixated on the ground whilst Laura’s were trying to decipher her expression. But the silence in the room suddenly felt very heavy and she found herself missing being teased about her many college failures.

“So, Perry. Truth or dare?”

And the moment was gone, the space filled with laughter once again. Carmilla looked up at her, lips quirked up in what Laura interpreted as a thank you. She lightly bumped her shoulder and returned her small smile, then shifted her attention back to the game.

 

 

Other than a few awkward moments whenever the more intimate questions came up – awkward for Laura, that is, highly entertaining for herself – Carmilla thought the night had been a success. She found it curious how in just a couple of weeks she’d managed to actually get to know Laura better than she knew most people in her life. Then again, she had never had any mission like this before. Or relationship, she chuckled to herself as she opened the door to her apartment. She shrugged off her jacket and headed to the bathroom, when she felt a breeze of chilly air making her shiver. She had definitely closed the window before leaving.

Without showing any sign of having noticed anything, she pretended to continue to the bathroom but she swiftly turned around and threw the dagger she kept tied on her thigh to the closet near her bed. The weapon landed and kept swaying a millimetre next to a figure in black’s ear.

“Careful with that, you could’ve killed me!”

“That was the intention.”

Carmilla slowly walked up to the man, who took off his sky mask to reveal an amused smirk.

“Now, Kitty-Cat, is that any way to treat your dear brother?”

“What do you want, William?”

She asked as she took her boots off and headed to the bathroom to wash up.

“Can’t a guy just miss his broody old sister?”

He asked from the other room. Carmilla raised an eyebrow at him, walking back into the room and throwing a Nirvana shirt on as a pyjama.

“Sure. But I asked what are _you_ doing here?”

He chuckled, shaking his head.

“Alright, alright, you got me. Perhaps you being here just so happens to coincide with someone else being here. Someone who has something I want.”

“Wow, don’t be so eloquent, please.” She deadpanned.

He rolled his eyes. “His name’s Merlyn. Rich guy, basically thinks he’s God. Likes to deal in stolen merch. He recently acquired something my employer would very much like back.”

Carmilla scoffed. “Naturally. And how do I come into this, granted I do decide to help you.”

“I… kind of have no idea what I’m supposed to steal back.”

His sister raised both eyebrows.

“My employer is very secretive and they only gave me a name! Not much I can do with a name. So I was hoping maybe you’d check it out in the CIA database, give me a better idea of what I’m looking for and-“

“And help you get it while I’m at it.”

“Well. That would be nice.”

“Sure, for you. I can’t just browse the CIA server like I’m shopping through Amazon, you know that!”

“Oh come on, Kitty! For me?” He was pouting. Legitimately pouting.

Carmilla looked at him for a few seconds before sighing.

“Okay, I might have an idea on how to help you. But, you owe me one. Or, another one.”

Will’s face lighted up in a huge grin. “Thanks, sis. You’re the best.”

 

 

Laura was sitting at her nerd herd booth, leaning on it, bored out of her mind, when she saw Carmilla walk in and she couldn’t help but stare. No matter how much time passed, she still found herself as dumbstruck by the girl as she was the first day she saw her walk in. Carmilla smirked when she reached her and leaned on the booth as well. Laura found she was close this way, like, _really_ close, and as the other girl moved even closer she found herself shutting her eyes and possibly holding her breath. When she felt a soft peck on the nose she opened her eyes again, puzzled at first but her face broke into a stupidly large grin as she saw Carmilla smiling at her.

“Hey cupcake. Busy day I see.” She pretended to look around at the three or four unfortunate souls who found themselves wandering the Buy More.

“As ever.”

Carmilla smiled a little but then pushed off the booth, straightening up and looking suddenly more serious.

“Is something wrong?” Laura asked, lowering her voice despite the lack of living beings who could overhear them.

“No, no, nothing’s wrong but… I hate to do this, but I need a favour. A personal one.”

“Oh?” Those were about the last words she ever thought Carmilla would utter, and to be fair it looked like it was a first for the spy too, judging by how uncomfortable she looked, seemingly trying to avoid eye contact.

“It’s for a mission, but not with the agency. A friend asked me for help but we need information that’s on the Intersect” This time Carmilla did look at her, and it was with apologetic eyes, as if she was already regretting the words as she said them.

“You know what, it’s not that important. I shouldn’t even ask you this, I-“

“Yes.”

“What?” The spy stopped in her uncharacteristic rambling and turned her gaze from the ground to Laura.

“Of course I will help you.”

“It might be dangerous. It probably will be. And, I’m not going to lie, we might both get in big trouble if something happens and the agency finds out.”

“Then I am willing to take the risk.” She put her hand on Carmilla’s, which was resting on the booth between them, “You risk your life to protect me on a daily basis, this is the least I could do.”

She squeezed her hand with a smile, which Carmilla shily returned.

“What is it that we’re doing exactly?”

The spy chuckled, shaking her head.

 

 

“Are you still a thousand percent sure you’re okay with this?”

“Hello to you too” Laura smiled, rolling her eyes, as she walked towards Carmilla’s car.

“I am, and you look great by the way.” They were both wearing long dresses to attend Merlyn’s gala, where whatever they were retrieving would hopefully be.

“As do you” Carmilla smiled, holding the door open to the passenger’s side of the car.

After she settled in, Laura noticed a slim guy in a tux smirking at her in the rear view mirror.

“Um… hi?”

“Hello there. You must be Laura” He took her hand and kissed it.

She raised her eyebrows, chuckling away her embarrassment.

“Hands off, William. You’re not her type.” Carmilla commented while driving away.

“Pardon me, sis. I didn’t realise she was your girlfriend.”

“She’s not- she’s a colleague, and a friend, and she gracefully accepted to help so just shut your ungrateful mouth already, would you.”

“Wait, sis? You’re Carmilla’s brother?”

“In the flesh. William Luce, at your service.” He smirked again and now Laura noticed the resemblance. More than that, though, her mind was flooded with questions that needed immediate answers; ‘where did you guys grow up’, ‘what was Carmilla like as a child’, ‘is both of them being spies a happy coincidence or is it a family business’. She had to restrain herself because she knew the dark-haired girl would not appreciate her interrogating her brother. At least, not in front of her. If she could manage to get Will alone for a few minutes though…

“We’re here.”

They all got off the car, and Will offered his arms to the two ladies, who grabbed them on each side of him. They walked to the hotel lobby, where a receptionist was checking everybody’s name off a list as they went.

“So what are our covers?”

“The usual” Carmilla answered. Laura let go of Will and made a beeline for the reception, before being pulled back by a strong hand on her arm.

“Oh no, cupcake. We’re not on the list.”

“Then how are we-“ She didn’t even have to finish her sentence as she saw Will chatting up the receptionist, immediately understanding what he was doing. Did spies just flirt their ways through every problem, or was it these silblings' thing?

He came back a minute later looking quite defeated.

“Don’t look so down, Willy boy. I suspect you’re not her type, either.” She smirked and handed her brother her purse as she sauntered to the receptionist.

Laura watched her lean forward on the front desk, exposing her generous neckline, and then lightly touching the girl’s arm with her fingers, sending her into a fit of giggles. She could not blame the poor girl; she’d been on the receiving end of Carmilla’s attentions and it felt amazing. She had this way of making you feel like you were the only and most important person in the room. Laura could not help but frown a little seeing her like that with someone else, a pang of jealousy rushing through her.

“Don’t take it personally. She’s always been good at that.” Will brought her back from her reverie, guessing her thoughts.

She contemplated denying it, but he was a spy and she was a terrible liar.

“Don’t I know it” She half-joked, but it came out as more of a sigh.

“She just can have people wrapped around her little finger like that” he snapped his fingers, “you know? She always manages to be in control, I don’t know how she does it. Well, except with Ell, of course” He trailed off, and it looked like he was talking to himself more than her.

“Ell?”

She asked, looking at him, but before he could say anything, Carmilla reappeared with three pass cards in hand and a satisfied smirk planted on her face.

“Shall we?”

 

The hall looked amazing, there was an old chandelier hanging from the ceiling and the way it was decorated seemed to imitate that of Versailles. This guy definitely thought he was some kind of king.

Laura couldn’t really appreciate any of that though as her mind wandered back to what Will had said. Was he implying that Ell was Carmilla’s… girlfriend? The girl who betrayed everything and everyone she claimed to love, who had Danny captured after she managed to send away the intersect before she could get her hands on it, and was possibly torturing her or worse? At least that’s what the government thought. They didn’t use so many words but Laura wasn’t an idiot. Carmilla loved _that_ girl?

Then again, Laura should have learned not to jump to conclusions by now. Will’s comment could have meant anything. Perhaps Ell was just really into meditating and therefore very good at self-control around Carmilla’s presence? Laura groaned internally.

It did make a lot of sense, though, if it were true. The way Carmilla spoke about her, or rather, the way she reacted when the subject came up and how she was always quick to change it – Laura had thought it was the betrayal of having your own partner work against everything you believe in. But if it really was her partner _and_ her girlfriend… Laura couldn’t even begin to imagine how she would react.

She looked at Carmilla, who was walking around, discreetly scanning the room. The more she found out about this girl, the less she seemed to know. She frowned, deciding to concentrate on the mission for the time being.

Which meant watching Carmilla flirt with an impressive amount of beautiful, rich, successful people, she thought as she heard her melodic laugh, before she spotted her chatting up a couple of young gentlemen who seemed to be hanging to her every word. She bid them goodbye with a smirk and a wink for good measure before subtly signalling Laura to join her. She begrudgingly left the buffet table she had been guarding (for very serious spy reasons completely unrelated to the chocolate fountain in the middle of it) and made her way to the other girl, as nonchalantly as she could.

As she reached Carmilla, she stood next to her, pretending to admire the ballroom and not making eye contact, as she had been previously instructed.

“Apparently Merlyn is a control freak who likes to have his collection of stolen goodies always in his proximities, and always under heavy security” the raven-haired girl took a sip of what was probably ludicrously expensive champagne before continuing.

“But he does have a weakness, as most men do. And for someone so keen on being unique, it’s disappointing that his weakness is the most ordinary of all.”

She raised her chin slightly to point at a middle-aged man a few feet away from them, who was laughing quite loudly, surrounded by at least a handful of pretty girls.

“This should be quick and painless. Hopefully.” She downed the rest of her champagne and side-glanced at Laura, motioning for her to follow.

Laura was still unsure as to how it happened but no more than five minutes later there was no trace of those other girls as both she and Carmilla were being escorted by Merlyn himself to his ‘great room of wonders’, as he described it. He had his hands on the girls’ backs as he guided them up the stairs and Laura had to make a conscious effort not to shiver under the man’s touch. When they reached the room, he started proudly describing the various paintings and artefacts that populated it. Carmilla would glance at Laura every now and again, but the smaller girl could only shake her head no as her Intersect had yet to be triggered and she was growing more and more anxious by the minute. When they reached the other side of the room and she still hadn’t flashed on anything, Carmilla got ready to knock the man out and do this the old way, just turning the place upside down until they found what they were looking for. Not the safest approach and one she had hoped to avoid, but an effective one nonetheless. She was already reaching for the man when she heard a tiny cough. She looked at Laura expectantly and followed her eyes to the door of the adjoining bedroom, which had been left ajar, quickly eyeing what had most likely gotten Laura’s attention.

“I’m afraid that’s not part of the tour”, Merlyn said as he shut the door, locking it with a key he was quick to put back in his pocket right after, “But I’m sure we can find a quiet place to chat, if that’s what you ladies would like.” He leered as he pulled them both closer with the hands he still had on their backs.

“I think”, Carmilla started, leaning closer, “that would be” she slowly pushed her hand into his jacket pocket, “frankly quite horrible. Laura, catch!”

She threw the key she had just stolen to Laura as she took advantage of the man’s surprise to take him out easily. His two security guards were already starting to throw punches her way as she yelled “Laura, go!”, gesturing to the bedroom door as best as she could while fighting two guys twice her size.

Laura struggled with the key but managed to get the door opened on the second try, and as soon as she was inside, she ran to the dresser and carefully picked up what they were there to get, smiling goofily at her accomplishment when she established it wasn’t going to blow up in her hands. Carmilla appeared in the doorway, slightly dishevelled, and gave her an unenthusiastic thumb up.

“Great job cupcake. You retrieved the thing. Amazing.” She said in the dullest tone she could muster.

A slow clap interrupted the two as a figure emerged from the shadows. “Amazing indeed. I have to say, at first I wasn’t sure why we brought you along, I thought it was just my sister having a crush, but you sure proved useful, _cupcake_ ” Will said as he swiftly grabbed the metallic ball from Laura’s hands.

“Hey!” The tiny girl tried to protest as he grabbed her as well, holding her in front of himself and forced her to follow him when he stepped on the edge of the open window. Carmilla took out her gun and held it at her brother, who was precariously holding himself up, as well as Laura.

“Oh, Kitty… would you really shoot your little brother?”

“Let her go, William.”

The boy smiled knowingly.

“Okay” He simply said, and just like that, he pushed Laura forward and back into the room, jumping backwards and out the window. Carmilla quickly caught Laura before she could hit the ground and let her down carefully. She ran to the window, only to see her brother smiling up at her from a motorcycle, winking before pulling his helmet visor down and driving away. She shook her head as she noticed the big tent right below the window that her brother must have used to soften his fall. She turned back to Laura as she heard the small girl grunt behind her while she stood up.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just a bit shaken up. Though I have to admit, I thought meeting your family would go a bit differently”

Carmilla couldn’t help the tiny smile that appeared on her lips, but it was quickly wiped away by the sound of steps and shouts coming from outside the room. She looked out the window, then back at Laura.

“I guess that’s our only way out”

Laura stepped forward so she was standing next to Carmilla in front of the window, and held out her hand.

“You jump I jump, Jack.”

“God, you’re such a dork.”

 

 

Laura waved Carmilla goodbye as the spy drove away. She started walking back to her house, heels in hand and still with a small smile on her lips, despite the unexpected turn of events of the night.

“Late night?” Laura was quite startled as she looked up to where the voice had come from. She still wasn’t used to someone else sharing their courtyard, nor to the idea of being spied on even in her own home. Nevertheless, she put on her best polite smile and greeted her neighbour.

“Hello Kirsch.”

“You were out with Carmilla.” It didn’t sound like a question. If anything, it sounded more like an accusation and Laura really wasn’t in the mood for their rival agencies feud or a lecture on how untrustworthy Carmilla was right now.

“Yes, but listen Kirsch, it was nothing okay? We were just hanging out.”

“Hanging out? Dressed like that?” He pointed at her outfit as she looked down at herself, following his eyes and blushing a bit.

“Yeah well, we’re supposed to be dating after all, and Laf is quite observing. Don’t want to have them noticing anything out of the ordinary”, she tried again to force the most convincing smile she could muster, probably failing since Kirsch’ only response was a sceptical “mm-mm”.

“Okay well, goodnight!” She yelped as she rushed towards her door, eager to put an end to this awkward exchange, and she almost thought she made it when she heard Kirsch call her back and reluctantly turned to him.

“Hey Laura?”

“Yes?”

“Be careful with her, okay? And I don’t mean, make sure she doesn’t hurt you. I mean, make sure she doesn’t _hurt you_. You know? The real kind.” Laura was taken aback by the words and the kind, sad eyes that accompanied them, and she just stared at Kirsch like he’d grown another head for a few seconds before slowly nodding and answering as seriously as she could.

“I will. Goodnight Kirsch” She said with a smile.

“Night little nerd” He smiled back at her before getting inside his house.

‘Yup’, she thought to herself as she walked up to her front door, ‘this night was definitely unexpected’.

 

 

Laura was absentmindedly scrolling through her phone, leaning her head on her hand and occasionally sighing as she tried to make time pass during her endless shift, when she felt her hand being grabbed and herself being dragged away from her booth and to the other side of the shop. She heard some muffled comments and saw some looks from her colleagues as she was shoved into a storage room. Only after she heard the click of the lock did she realise exactly what just happened.

“Carm, you can’t just kidnap people like that!” She tried to sound stern but the smile that tugged at the edges of her lips gave her complete lack of annoyance away.

“As far as they know I’m your girlfriend. Perhaps I needed some alone time.” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. Laura’s smile fell.

“Oh gosh, do they think that’s what we’re doing in here? That’s so embarrassing, I have to work with these people! How am I supposed to look them in the face when they know I- they _think_ I’ve just been getting it on with my girlfriend in a storage room?!”

Carmilla would have stopped Laura in her ramble, she really would have, but she quite enjoyed seeing the girl so worked up and red faced about something so trivial.

“Relax, creampuff. If anything, they’ll be jealous.” Laura gave her a ‘yeah right’ look, which only made the spy chuckle even more.

“Did you need anything or was my complete embarrassment the aim of your visit?” the small girl tried to change the subject, and now it was Carmilla’s turn to fall more serious.

“Yeah, I… Listen, I wanted to apologise for yesterday. I dragged you into this, I trusted Will like an idiot and put you in danger, I am really sorry, Laura.”

The sincerity in Carmilla’s eyes and the use of her actual name, which she had started to notice, was reserved for special occasions and serious situations, were kind of taking Laura’s breath away. When the small girl realised how long she’d been holding the spy’s gaze she quickly turned her eyes away as she mumbled an “it’s okay”.

Carmilla was about to reply, to make sure the other girl was really okay, but then without any warning her demeanour changed as she reached for Laura’s tie, loosening it, and then proceeded to undo the two top buttons of her shirt.

“Carm, what the-“ She didn’t even have time to finish her sentence as the older girl pushed her against the door, which was suddenly being opened, and then she was on the floor with Carmilla’s body on top of her and her mouth of her neck.

A loud cough came from above them, and when the spy moved her head away, Laura could dreadfully recognise that it came from her supervisor, who was standing just a couple feet away, arms crossed, unimpressed look.

“Ladies. Please keep your activities outside of the store’s boundaries.”

Laura was so horrified by the whole situation she couldn’t even speak. She just laid there, her face reddening more and more with each passing second.

“I’m sorry Mr Boss man sir, won’t happen again,” Carmilla said as she slowly got up from straddling Laura, and helped the other girl get up as well.

“It better not” Was the only reply as the man left, turning his back on then.

“Sorry, had to act fast” The spy whispered, as Laura was still impossibly close after she pulled her up from the ground. Then she took a quick look around at the many employees who were still staring at them and couldn’t help but smirk. “At least now we know exactly what they think we were doing in there” she added with a wink.

“You are unbelievable” Laura retorted, stepping away a bit and fixing her shirt and tie as best as she could while Carmilla just kept smiling.

“Little nerd, spy girl” Kirsch greeted as he approached them.

“Spy girl?” Carmilla raised an eyebrow as Laura stifled a laugh. Kirsch simply shrugged.

“Just trying it out. You don’t like it?”

“I really don’t, but even if I did, don’t you think we should try to be just a little more inconspicuous, what with being undercover and all?”

Kirsh looked as confused as ever.

“It’s too obvious, beefcake! You can’t go around calling me a spy all willy-nilly. As far as people here know, I work at a bakery, you could call me Muffin at beast – don’t even think about it, I _will_ cut you” she added hastily.

“Okay, okay, put your claws back. You might want to come with me to the back room, both of you. For totally boring baking and electronics related things.”

 

 

“We need you retrieving a valuable object that has been recently stolen in the city” General Beckman cut right to the chase. The three of them where standing in the small Buy More back room, which the government had set up as a temporary base, grateful that the store’s employees where too negligent to ever use the space.

“An infamous art smuggler is currently in town” Images moved around the big screen as the woman spoke and Laura swallowed audibly as she recognised the man on the main picture.

“Merlyn” she instantly said, her brain unable to stop her mouth. Carmilla shot her a look as the General raised her eyebrows in question. She touched her index finger to her head a couple times before chuckling nerviously, “Computer brain”.

Both the General and Kirsch seemed satisfied with the explanation as the briefing continued and Laura wished so hard that this was not about what she helped Carmilla with. As always with her, no such luck. Beckman went ahead and told them one of Merlyn’s most precious artefacts had been recently stolen from him, which represented a great opportunity for the government to put its hands on it, as it wouldn’t be as guarded as before.

“We believe Merlyn’s prominent competition, Mr Sloane, hired a known freelancer to steal the sphere. Unfortunately, we have no data on him except for a codename, ‘the Dude’”, she said with a look of distaste. Kirsch audibly chuckled.

“The Dude? For real? That’s the silliest name ever”, he commented, Laura and Carmilla sharing an amused look as he didn’t seem to see the irony in his words. Carmilla was sure he was only jealous that someone got the nickname before he could claim it, but she bit her tongue; they were in an official briefing after all. Her amusement seemed to fade away all the faster when she noticed how uncomfortable and nervous Laura looked.

Fortunately, the general bid them goodbye and good luck soon after, informing them they were to follow a lead and hopefully retrieve the stolen object that same afternoon. As soon as the screen went black, Laura sighed with relief and mumbled that she had to get back to work before quickly leaving the room.

She was still in the dvd aisle when she felt someone grab her wrist. She stopped in her tracks, recognising the soft hand and turning around to face the spy.

“I’m sorry Carm, I shouldn’t have just stormed out like that. That must have looked suspicious – did it look suspicious? I just, I saw the pictures of Merlyn and last night and I got scared that they knew what we did and you’d get in trouble and-“

“Hey, hey, hey, look at me”, Carmilla took Laura’s face in her hands, looking in her eyes.

“I’m okay, you’re okay, everything’s okay. Will deleted any digital trace of our presence last night. I made sure of that. There is literally nothing tying us to that theft”.

She stroked Laura’s cheeks with her thumbs absentmindedly.

“We just get through this mission as if it were a regular one; kick some asses, retrieve some stolen goods, maybe save the world.”

She shrugged nonchalantly and Laura broke out in a smile.

“Okay. Yeah. Save the world. So we’re not in trouble?”

Carmilla let her hands drop back to her sides as she saw Kirsch pass them, giving them a weird look.

“Not yet.”

 

There was an odd silence in the car as they drove, only interrupted by the GPS giving Kirsch directions as he sulked behind the steering wheel. That was part of the oddness; the usually ever happy puppy sulking. After a whole hour (okay it was more like five minutes but to Laura it felt like forever) of awkward silence, she spoke up.

“Soooo, what’s the plan again?”

Carmilla shot her a look from the front seat; she was enjoying the quiet for once and did not appreciate its interruption.

“We intercepted a message according to which ‘The Dude’ is meeting his employer at this diner. We just walk in, you flash on his identity, we apprehend him and retrieve the object” Carmilla supplied with a monotone whilst analysing her nails.

“Yeah, what your new BFF said”, Kirsch mumbled. This made the other spy look up from her seat next to him, while Laura leaned in closer in the space between the two front seats.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Kirsch met her eyes through the rear view mirror for a second before replying.

“Whatever you two are doing, I promise you it’s not smart”

“We’re not doing anything” Carmilla was still looking at her nails, apparently not paying much attention to the conversation but Laura noticed her slight stilling after Kirsch’ words.

“It’s not smart”, he repeated, ignoring Carmilla and looking Laura straight in the eyes through the mirror. Laura swallowed almost audibly.

“We’re here” the other girl broke the silence and exited the car as soon as it stopped. Laura followed suit, not before getting one last glance from Kirsch, which in return sent a wave of guilt right to her stomach.

“What _are_ we doing?” she whispered to Carmilla as she went to walk next to her toward the diner.

“We’re going in, you pretend to flash on Will, I talk to him, hopefully convince him to give us the stolen thing before the bad guys arrive”

“And how do you plan on not arresting him after that?”

Carmilla stopped and turned to Laura as she opened the door for them both.

“I haven’t figured that part out yet. Kirsch, are you in position?” She said as she activated her earpiece, which Laura was quick to do as well.

“Affirmative. Waiting subject confirmation.”

“Laura, take a look around. Beefcake, remember: shoot only if you see a firearm” she knew Will despised guns and hoped that they would not have to meet anyone else who didn’t. The short girl slightly tapped her arm with her elbow, motioning to the corner booth of the diner, half hidden in the shadows.

“Thanks, creampuff. Now, stay here.”

Laura pouted a little but didn’t fight the order as Carmilla slid into the seat in front of her brother. She noticed her subtly turning off her com and was a bit disappointed as her curious self really wanted to listen in on the conversation.

“Kitty cat” he said, only half succeeding in hiding his surprise as he put his cup of coffee down “Didn’t expect to see you here”

“I’ll bet you didn’t” she couldn’t help her slight smirk. “Turns out, I’m going to need what _I_ stole the other night back.”

“No can do” Will sat back in the booth “but I see you’ve brought your lovely girlfriend with you”

“She’s not my-“

“Yeah yeah, whatever you say. Your accomplice then. I like her. She has moxie. Which is why I would be very sorry if Vladimir over there were to have to hurt her in any way”

She turned around and, sure enough, there was an oversized man sitting next to Laura with what was definitely a gun under his jacket. She didn’t even have to look to know that he was blocking Kirsch’ trajectory as well. She put her best menacing face on.

“William…”

“Relax, sis, she’ll be fine. Vlad and I are just going to calmly walk out of here, and no one will get hurt” he signalled the big guy with a nod of his head while getting up.

“It’s always good doing business with you” he actually winked at her before he left the diner, as Vladimir waited for him to be out to put his gun away and follow him.

Carmilla got up and turned to Laura as she went for the door. “You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good.”

“Good. I have to follow them. Go wait in the car with Kirsh.”

“As if” Laura followed her out the door and although she rolled her eyes, she could see Carmilla was also fighting a smile.

“Hey NSA, we’re in pursuit. Drive around the block and see if you can cut them off.”

“Roger that”

The girls ran after Will and his Russian muscle guy for a couple blocks before they entered an abandoned building and went up the stairs.

“Ugh, more exercise” Carmilla heard Laura mumble as they followed. When they reached the top of the stairs she took her gun out and motioned the Buy More employee to stay behind her as she carefully entered the room. Will and Vladimir were just standing in the middle of it and the satisfied little smirk on her brother’s face let her know way too late that they had just very stupidly walked into a trap. The door slammed closed behind them as she managed to take down a few guys while Laura glued herself to the nearest wall to stay out of the way. But Will managed to get to her and take her with a knife to her neck, which served to distract Carmilla long enough for Vladimir to disarm her and immobilise her in his arms.

A rough voice emerged from a corner of the room, a big figure in a suit following the sound.

“Well done, Mr Luce” said the man – Mr Sloane, Laura guessed. “Now hand me the object so our Russian friend can kill these two off and we can get on with our day”

Will had already gotten the thing out of his pocket and was holding it with one hand, about to offer it to his employer whilst holding Laura with his other arm around her neck, when he faltered.

“Kill them? Do you think that’s smart, offing two government agents? We have what you wanted, let’s just knock them out and go. You don’t really want the CIA on your ass, do you” he noticed Mr Sloane’s demeanour change and quickly added “..sir?”

“You’re not paid to be my moral guide, Luce, you’re paid to retrieve things and until that thing” he pointed to it “is in my possession, you’re not getting your money. What do you care what happens to these two anyway?” Sloane’s interest seemed piqued as he studied the girls in front of him and Will as well.

“I don’t” William said, before quickly releasing Laura to elbow Vladimir in the face, effectively freeing Carmilla as well.

In the commotion, the object fell off his hand and a strange green gas leaked off of it as it hit the ground and opened.

“What did you do, you idiot!?” Sloane covered his mouth with his pocket tissue and ran towards the door, passing right next to the thing that fell down, revealing now its content: a couple vials of that strange green gas that they’d all just inhaled. Vladimir was quick to follow, as was Will, who only briefly turned back to see his sister and her friend kneeling on the ground and coughing violently.

“I’m sorry” he whispered. Carmilla managed to look up at him and saw him disappearing out the door through the green smoke before collapsing on the ground.

 

Laura’s eyes struggled to open and when they finally did she was fast to close them again as the blinding white light did nothing for the killer headache that suddenly hit her. She groaned, bringing a hand to her head as she slowly sat up, fighting to open her eyelids and assess her surroundings.

“Morning, sleepyhead”

A raspy voice, raspier than usual, came from a few feet away. As her vision adjusted she could see Carmilla, leaning against the white wall with her arms resting on her knees. When the spy turned her head to her, she noticed the red circles under her eyes and how she looked even paler than usual.

“Carm? What happened? Are you okay?”

She sat up, turning her body completely towards the spy and leaning her left side against the wall. She looked around a little. They were in a square room, if it could even be called a room. All the walls and the floor and ceiling where white and somewhat puffy, comfortable but eerily hospital-like, which made Laura’s stomach do a small jump, and not the good kind. She noticed both her and Carmilla had been changed, though she had no recollection of it, and were now wearing a white tank top and white leggins to match. She once again turned to look at the spy, the heavy feeling in her chest only growing stronger.

“Where are we?”

Carmilla managed a small smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She opened her mouth to speak but was cut off by a voice coming from a window on the other side of the room.

“You’re in a containment room lit- Laura” Kirsh looked at her with sympathy and what could only be described as guilt as he continued. “I’m afraid you’ve been exposed to a virulent substance, but we’re working on a cure and it should be ready asap” he too attempted to smile, but it did nothing to lighten the mood.

“Virulent… doesn’t that mean…?”

Carmilla looked straight in front of her as she spoke with a blank expression.

“Poison. It’s poison, and it’s lethal, and it’s going to kill us in less than 24 hours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this took quite a long time. Sorry about that. Life is crazy and inspiration is a bitch and to be honest I had this chapter almost complete for months and I know where I want the story to go, what is hard is the logistics of the missions, making sure the spy parts make sense in the story but they're not too complicated as to distract from it.  
> Aaaanyway, I hope you like this chapter and I hope I'll be able to add a new one soon enough. Let me know what you think of it all :)  
> xx
> 
> ps. sorry about the cliffhanger. One of the reasons I couldn't bring myself to finish this chapter was I couldn't write everything I wanted in it, so I decided to just cut it in two. So this is more action filled while the next one will focus more on the girls' backstories and relationships, and it will answer some of Laura's pressing questions from this chapter and the previous ones.


	4. Laura vs. The Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura and Carmilla have been slightly lethally poisoned. Which seems like the perfect time to bond and share things they maybe weren't so keen on sharing before. A lot of different people find out a lot of different things. Some things they wanted to know, some they didn't.

“Poison. Lethal poison. As in, it can kill us. As in, it _will_ kill us. Killer poison. Right.”

Laura was walking back and forth in a straight line right in front of Carmilla, who hadn’t moved a single inch, still sitting with her arms on her knees, lazily following the girl with her eyes.

“Well, at least we know the killer poison didn’t affect your speech abilities”

Laura shot her a look.

“Or your motor skills. Can you stop all that fidgeting?” she motioned at her with her hand “It’s making my headache even worse and you should preserve your strength, you know, so-“

“So I die in 23 hours instead of 22?”

It was Carmilla’s turn to shoot the other girl a look, right before sighing and patting the space next to her with her hand, encouraging Laura to come sit there. The small girl stopped walking and seemed to think about it for a second before plopping down next to the spy with a sigh of her own.

“Now what?”

“I like Mulan”

Laura turned to look at the girl with a puzzled expression.

“What?”

“You asked me if I liked any Disney film. I like Mulan.”

Even in that situation, Laura couldn’t stop the smile that slowly took over her face. She leaned closer to Carmilla and nudged her with her shoulder.

“And are you sure you want the whole CIA to know that?”

Carmilla snorted. “Over my dead body. Quite literally in this case” again, the small girl scolded her with her eyes, as the spy rolled hers in return, before pointing to a camera in the high corner of the room.

“They can’t hear us, unless they activate the audio feed to talk to us. Otherwise, they just have visual. To, uh, you know..”

“Make sure we don’t suddenly drop dead”

“Yeah, something like that.”

There were a few seconds of heavy silence before Laura broke it.

“So… Mulan, uh?”

The spy chuckled again and the two just went on to have small talk about anything and everything for a little bit before falling into a more comfortable silence.

“I’m sorry” the two words were barely a whisper, so much so that Laura wasn’t even sure if they were truly spoken or if she had just dreamed it. She didn’t know how much time had passed, it was hard to tell with no windows or clocks around, but it had been enough time for her to drift off with her head on Carmilla’s shoulder. She internally prayed that she didn’t drool all over the spy in her sleep. That is so not the way she’d want to be remembered. She shook off those thoughts as she recalled what woke her from her half asleep state and she didn’t move nor did she look up at the other girl as she spoke.

“For what?”

“Just… this. All of it. If I hadn’t dragged you into this…”

“That wasn’t your fault” Laura looked up at her as Carmilla turned her head as well, looking her in the eyes. Laura could see she didn’t believe her so she insisted, sitting up right.

“It wasn’t. You didn’t poison me, and you didn’t make me follow you to that party or into that room and you didn’t put this thing in my head. If you really want to blame someone, it would probably have to be Danny”

Laura furrowed her brows after saying that. Did she blame Danny? She’d never really thought about it that way. She blamed Danny for a lot of things, sure, namely not believing her or defending her when she got expelled and had to give up her dream of becoming a journalist. But this? I mean, technically if someone were to be blamed it would be Danny. But Laura couldn’t really bring herself to be mad at the tall girl for this particular thing, even in this instance. Because if she was being honest with herself, ever since she got the Intersect she finally felt like herself again for the first time in a long time; like she was actually helping and making a difference. Carmilla’s voice brought her out of her thoughts.

“I am sure the amazon had her reasons to send you that email. Though if I’m being honest, I never really understood it either”

Laura seemed slightly offended at that but let the girl continue.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I am glad she did, though that is mainly for selfish reasons. If she hadn’t sent it to you, I might have ended up babysitting the beefcake 24/7. That grown up puppy with all the nation’s secrets in his head?” she appeared equally disgusted and terrified at the thought, which made Laura smile.

“I wonder how she knew though” Carmilla wasn’t looking at her anymore, just staring at a random spot on the floor with a pensive expression.

“Not everybody would be fit to take on a computer like that. In fact, most people aren’t, it would fry their brain right up. You have to possess a high IQ and a particular previous knowledge of the technology to be able to absorb all of that information.”

“Are you saying that I’m like, super smart?” Laura grinned.

“Of course that’s what you got out of all of that” The spy rolled her eyes and chuckled in response.

“No but I see what you mean. It’s not like I haven’t asked myself that same question every day since opening that email. I guess we’ll just have to ask her when we get out of here and find her.”

Carmilla wanted to correct the two ‘whens’ to two much more likely ‘ifs’, but as she turned to Laura smiling next to her she just didn’t have the heart to. What good would it do now, anyway? The girl knew what their odds were, she was just trying to stay positive about it, as usual, and for once, Carmilla didn’t want to shut her down. She could use some hope herself right now.

“What happened there, anyway?” Laura turned to her with an unreadable expression “If I may ask.”

The small girl took a deep breath and turned away from her before answering.

“We went to Stanford together. She was my lit TA my freshman year, we used to fight about Shakespeare’s plays like our lives depended on it” Laura couldn’t help but chuckle at the memory. “We became friends after I passed that course when we bumped into each other a few months later and we kept seeing each other after that. We kind of were together, I think”

Carmilla raised her perfect eyebrows at that “You think? I think you’d notice if you were. Especially considering the size of that human”

“Ah-ah” Laura nudged her with her shoulder “I just mean, we uhm… we never labelled it but we hung out for a while and we kissed a couple times and stuff” she blushed considerably at that, suddenly very interested in staring at the floor.

“Stuff, uh?” Carmilla smirked, though her stomach contorted in a strange way at that information.

“Yeah, stuff. Anyway, a few months before my graduation, I was working on my final project. It was this huge investigation that would have proven the dean was misusing University funds for her own profits, and Danny was helping me. Then out of the blue, campus police storms into one of my classes, escorting me outside. They tell me they’d found stolen documents in my dorm room about my investigation, and then proceed to expel me because of it. All the while, Danny was standing right behind them, arms crossed on her chest. She couldn’t even meet my eyes. After they left I went to speak to her but she left just as fast. I had to leave campus the next day. I went to say goodbye but she wouldn’t even see me. I later found out she actually testified against me”

Carmilla hated to see Laura that way and found she had a sudden urge to hurt anybody who hurt the small girl just as badly.

“I’m sorry” she said, because it was the only thing that came even remotely close to everything she actually wanted to say.

Laura smiled wistfully at that.

“Again, not your fault”

“I know, but still. I have to say though, that doesn’t sound like Lawrence at all”

“Yeah well, maybe neither of us knows her as well as we thought”

“I don’t think you can really ever truly know another person. Anyone can surprise you, be it in a good or a bad way. But it’s usually the latter.”

“Are you talking about Will?”

“Mm-mm. It wasn’t that surprising, really. It’s what he always does, use people to get what he needs. I just hate that I got you sucked into it too.”

“Please, like you could’ve kept me away from trouble” They both chuckled lightly at that.

“Is he really..?”

“My brother? Kind of” Laura waited for her to continue and nudged her a little when she didn’t. Carmilla rolled her eyes.

“Fine, you want the tragic backstory? Might as well, I guess. We were both in the same foster home. I got bumped around a lot but managed to stay in the same one from 14 to 18. While I was there, a little scrawny kid named William came to stay with us, too. I kind of took pity on him and helped him survive the foster jungle” Laura could see that there was real affection behind those words and at the same time she tried to hide her excitement that Carmilla was willingly giving up information about herself, even though it was in a bit of an extreme situation.

“When I got out I managed to survive on my own for a while, doing random crappy jobs. And when Will got out, I took him in. We lived on our own for a bit but the frugal style didn’t really fit him. He started getting into some dangerous illegal shit and I… I sort of joined him just to get him out of it”

Laura gave her a questioning look and she sighed. “We started conning people. Little things at first, here and there. But then he started getting cocky. We both did. Cocky and careless. It was only a matter of time before the police caught up with us. Will managed to escape but I was put in a cell for the night. The next morning, federal agents showed up, offering me a job. Yeah, I was surprised too” she added when she saw Laura’s disbelieving face.

“They said I had talent and I could choose whether to rot in a cell for a few years or go work for them. I think you can guess my decision.”

“And Will?”

“I offered him the same deal but he didn’t want anything to do with it. He was always a bit of a wild one, following the rules never really fit him. I went into training and didn’t hear from him again for a while. After that, he just shows up sometimes, usually to ask for help. And I fall for it every time.”

“I get it. He’s family” she paused a little before adding “Thanks for telling me” they looked at each other and Carmilla gave her a small smile, before they both turned back and rested their heads against the wall behind them.

 

“How much time do you think has passed?” Laura asked after a while.

“Are your fingertips tingling? Stomach hurting?”

“Uhm… Stomach no. Fingertips a little. Why?”

“This kind of poison tends to kick in with time. First it’s numbness in your hands and feet, then stomach cramps, exhaustion” she noticed Laura’s scared look and audible gulp so she decided to try to lighten the mood.

“I’d say we still have a bit of time, don’t worry. And I hate to say this but the dude-bro is probably working non-stop with our best scientists to find a cure for this thing.”

“I’m not sure he wants to help us right now”

“Who, Kirsh? Why would you say that?”

“I don’t know. He just doesn’t seem to like me very much.”

“It’s not you, it’s me. He doesn’t trust you with me. He just doesn’t trust me in general. I was Ell’s partner and he thinks I still am”

Laura looked at Carmilla, who was staring straight ahead of her, and decided not to pursue the Ell subject for now, especially since it was the first time the spy had brought it up herself.

“Well that’s not fair. I’d say you’ve more than proven which side you’re on”

Carmilla gave her a small thankful smile, but she still looked very sad.

“That doesn’t matter. But it’s okay, I get it. He wants Danny back and if he needs to cling to the idea that I could somehow help him with that to keep him going, so be it”

“Were they..?”

“Together? No. In fact, they pretty much hated each other at first. And they bickered _so_ much _all_ the time, it was unbearable. But I think the puppy fell for the amazon somewhere along the way. Being someone’s partner, it inevitably becomes personal, sooner or later”

“Is that what happened with you and Ell?”

Laura regretted it as soon as she said it, biting her lower lip as Carmilla’s head shot towards her, her eyes fixated on her. She lowered them slowly as she whispered

“I suppose”

“Were you-“

“I don’t want to talk about it”

“You can tell me, I won’t judge-“

“Laura, please”

“Just tell me, yes or no, and I won’t ask anymore”

Carmilla sighed, taking her eyes off Laura completely and closing them, resting her head against the wall once again. Laura kept staring at her for a bit, awaiting an answer. A few minutes later, when she’d almost forgotten she had even asked, Carmilla spoke.

“Yes”

Laura pretended her heart didn’t break just a little right then. She didn’t turn to look at the girl next to her, nor did Carmilla. They just kept sitting there in silence, not looking at each other.

 

“Laura, wake up” Carmilla poked the girl’s head, which was once again resting on her shoulder.

“You can’t fall asleep, you need to wake up”

“I’m cold” Laura mumbled, hugging her hands to her knees and huddling closer to Carmilla, barely even noticing she was doing it.

“And tired, and my stomach’s killing me”

“I know, cupcake. It’ll be over soon” Carmilla drew closer to her and rested her head on top of Laura’s, lightly touching her lips to the girl’s forehead. They stayed like that for a little bit, both shivering.

“Carm?”

“Mm?”

“If…” Laura shook her head, stopping herself, but then she continued “if we get out of here alive, if they manage to get this thing out of my head, do you think… could we ever..?” She looked up at Carmilla, who stayed silent for a bit.

“I’m a spy. I can never have a normal life, or get attached. I have to go where they tell me, I have missions, I-“

“Of course, right, I get it. It was stupid of me to ask, forget I ever brought it up” Laura moved her head off the spy’s shoulder and stared at the ground as Carmilla turned her head to look at her.

“Laura…” They broke their embrace completely when the door in front of them opened and in came Kirsh with a hazmat suit and a huge grin on his face.

“Ladies! We did it!” He kneeled in front of them and shot them both with a scarily huge needle into their arms, then took off his mask.

“You are free to go”

 

Kirsch and Laura silently walked up the stairs to their courtyard after he drove her home. She was about to say goodnight and finally go get some sleep when he spoke up.

“Hey little nerd, I’m sorry I’ve been kind of a… not cool dude”

He awkwardly brought his hand to the back of his neck and Laura smiled at his choice of words.

“I guess what happened with Ell left me with a few trust issues, and trying to get Danny back… it distracted me from being there for you in the present. And that’s my mission, so I will do that from now on”

“Thanks, Kirsch” Laura smiled kindly at him and he smiled back.

“Plus I think I might have been wrong about Karnstein. I saw the way she was with you in that containment room. I don’t think she’d hurt you. Not on purpose.”

Laura’s lips curved up and she nodded slightly.

“Goodnight, Brody” His goofy grin returned full force at the mention of his fake name.

“Goodnight little nerd”

Laura waved him goodbye and finally entered her home. Saying she was exhausted would have been the understatement of the century. She just wanted to take a warm shower and then collapse on her bed for at least a couple days.

But of course as soon as she opened the door, two redheads rushed towards her, barely giving her time to put a foot in the door before bombarding her with questions.

“Laura Marie Hollis, where in the world were you? Do you realise how worried we were?”

“You were with your lady lover, weren’t you?”

“Disappearing like that for almost a day? I was this close to calling the police, you can’t just-“

“Yeah it was not cool Hollis. But tell us, did you guys go-“

“Guys, guys, please!” Laura held her hands up and raised her voice and her two friends finally stopped their inquisition.

“I’m really sorry I didn’t call. Carmilla showed up after work and we, uhm, we…,” she really should have thought about this before, but it didn’t occur to her, what with the almost dying and all. She quickly looked around and saw the plants outside the window. “We went camping. Yeah, camping. An impromptu trip really. Stayed the night. With no reception.”

“You went camping?” Lafontaine didn’t seem very convinced, and even Perry was looking a bit puzzled.

“Indeed I did. And I’m sorry guys I am so tired, can we talk about this tomorrow?”

“Laura honey, it’s 8 in the morning.”

“Yeah well, I didn’t get a lot of sleep” She regretted it as soon as she said it, as Lafontaine’s face lit up with a huge grin and they started whistling and moving their eyebrows uncontrollably. Which gained them some mild scolding from Perry, which in turn gave Laura the perfect opportunity to sneak out into her room. She skipped the shower and went straight to the collapsing on the bed, almost falling asleep before she even touched the mattress.

 

 

Even in her sleep-deprived lightheaded state, the first thing Carmilla noticed when she entered her apartment was her window. It wasn’t even left ajar this time, just fully open, curtains flying in the wind and all.

“Seriously, Will, now you’re not even trying” she let the corner of her mouth curve in a little smile because she knew he couldn’t see her. She was glad he was still alive, in spite of everything. If anything, so she could beat him up herself.

“Didn’t want to risk another knife to my head”

“You still might get one, I haven’t decided yet”

She said as she turned around to face him. He was leaning against the wall in front of her with his arms crossed around his chest and the ever present smirk on his lips.

“Oh come on, you know I would have never let them kill you”

“You put Laura in danger” it came out much angrier and much less unaffected than she intended and she internally cursed herself the second she said it. She knew Will would notice.

He studied her face for a couple seconds.

“Seriously, what is up with that? I’ve never seen you this invested, not even with-“

“Don’t” she warned him, “Ell could take care of herself. Laura isn’t trained and it’s my job to protect her. Literally my job. That’s it.”

“Okay” Will saw it best for him not to push this. He was already walking on thin ice as it was.

“I actually came by to give you this” he said as he leaned off the wall and took something out of his pocket, dangling it in front of his sister as he walked closer to her. Carmilla looked up questioningly at her brother.

“A business card for PHILO Industries? You know the CIA covers my insurance right?”

“Very funny. It’s a front. For what, I am not sure, but it’s something big. Here.” He handed her the business card. “I swept this off Mr Sloane. Amongst other things.”

Carmilla couldn’t help her smirk. She was sure he stole the antidote for the poison, for one, and if she knew her brother he probably made it out with all the cash he could find as well.

“Why are you giving this to me?”

“Let’s just say I’m not very good at apologising” he walked towards the window and was about to leave as she spoke again.

“You know you could just use the door. The CIA still doesn’t know your face. You’re welcome, by the way, _dude_ ”

He grinned “I know, but this is way cooler”, he winked at her and jumped off the window, landing on his motorcycle a few feet down. “Bye, sis” he did a mock salute before putting his helmet on and driving away.

“Bye, Willy boy” she whispered as she stared at the card in her hand.

 

 

Laura woke up to the heavenly smell of hot chocolate and marshmallow and opened her eyes to find a steaming cup resting on her bedside table.

“Oh my god, I love you so much,” she said, sitting up and taking the mug in her hands.

“Why, thank you” Lafontaine replied, standing in front of her with a smile and their own cup in their hands.

“I was talking to the cocoa. But you’re pretty cool too” Laura smiled, carefully taking a sip of the beverage.

“Right back atcha” they said as they sat in front of her on her bed. “Now, care to tell me where you really spent the last 24 hours?”

Laura stopped mid sip and almost choked. When she managed to stop her coughing, she replied.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about”

Lafontaine raised their eyebrows with an unimpressed look.

“Come on, L. I’m your best friend, and I know you wouldn’t be caught dead camping, even for someone as good looking as Carmilla. Plus you can’t lie for shit, I know you’ve been feeding us half-truths for a while now. So where were you?”

Laura bit her bottom lip, considering her options. Laf was right, she never was a good liar. But she had to lie now, her life and her friends’ lives depended on it. But, she clearly couldn’t fool Laf for much longer. She sighed deeply and put her mug down on her bedside table to pick up her phone. Laf gave her a puzzled look as they watched her internal struggle play out on her face.

“Laur?”

She just raised her hand, signalling them to wait a second.

_I will tell you but I can’t do it here. Meet me in the laundry room in two minutes._

“Laura what the-“

The girl gave them a warning glance and went to type again.

_Laf, please. Trust me. Pretend that you’re just dropping the subject right now. I’ll explain everything, I promise._

As Lafontaine read the text, their eyebrows shot up higher and higher on their forehead, so much so that Laura was expecting them to disappear into their hairline. They read the words and looked at her. Then they looked back at their phone. Then back up at her.

“I thought she was hot enough to go camping for but I think you’re right, I am not doing that again”, she said to fill the strange silence, picking up where their spoken conversation was left off.

“Okay then. I guess I’ll just go do the laundry now” they slowly got up and kept looking at her oddly as they left.

“Good idea, I might join you, I have some stuff to wash too” Laura called after them. She finished off her cocoa and followed them to the laundry room.

 

“You’re a spy?!” Lafontaine whisper-yelled, unable to control their enthusiasm.

“Well technically, not really. An analyst maybe? Or a consultant, like Sherlock.”

Lafontaine waved her explanation off, way too excited about what they’d just learned to let their friend underplay it. Laura still couldn’t believe she’d just told them everything that happened in the past few weeks. It felt oddly liberating and exciting and quite dangerous too but she mostly just felt relieved that she didn’t have to hide this big part of her life from her best friend anymore.

“Everything makes so much sense now. All the late nights and odd hours. And Carmilla! She does give off that Nikita vibe, you know, gorgeous and lethal. I mean, not that you couldn’t land a girl like her obviously but- wait are you guys actually together?”

“No. I mean- no. Well, it’s… complicated” she shook her head. Now was not the time to think about that. “But Laf, you can’t tell anyone okay. Not even Perry. Especially not Perry, she would freak out. And if they find out I’ve told you, we will both be in a lot of trouble”

“No of course not, L. My lips are sealed” the mimicked actually sealing their lips with their fingers.

“But why couldn’t you tell me all of this in your room?” Their expression changed as they realised something, “wait – did they bug your room?!”

Laura bit her lip. “I honestly have no idea but I wouldn’t be surprised and didn’t want to take the risk. I thought the noise from the washing machine would drown out our conversation.”

“That’s such a spy thing to say” Laf commented with a huge grin on their face, gaining a small shove on the arm from their friend.

“You don’t know how great it feels to finally be able to talk about it with someone other than Carmilla. I mean, there’s Kirsch but, you know.”

“He’s not so good at relationship advice?”

“What? I- That’s not-“, Laura instantly blushed as she stumbled on her words trying to deny it.

“Come on Frosh, you’re red as a tomato and I’ve seen the way you are around her. She may be a trained liar but you are most definitely not”

“Hey, I’ll have you know I was an essential addition to their team! But okay, you might be right” Laura sighed. “It’s just, it’s really hard you know, pretending to be together. The lines get blurry really easily.”

Laf put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Laur. But she did look pretty into you when she came over the other day. Are you sure she wasn’t fake-pretending as well?” They realised how confusing what they said just sounded. “I mean, it could be real, couldn’t it?”

Laura smiled wistfully. “I thought so. But now, I am pretty sure she’s just very good at pretending”

Her phone buzzed right then with a text from Kirsch. _Buymore. Now._

“I’m sorry. Duty calls.” She motioned to her phone.

“No worries, L. Go save the world” She smiled one last time before exiting the door, trying to keep her mind from wandering to the conversation she had with Carmilla in the containment room, about Ell, about them, about everything. She sighed as she got on her bike and made her way to the store.

 

 

“What the frilly hell?”

Laura exclaimed as she walked out of an elevator she didn’t think had been there a week before in the back of the Buy More.

“I know. It’s so cool, right?” Kirsh said with his usual huge grin as he activated another door with his handprint. Laura could only widen her eyes and nod in agreement.

She followed him inside what was an honest to Lestat proper government base, filled with lethal-looking gadgets, way more computer screens than they probably needed and locked guns everywhere.

“Hey” Carmilla gave her a shy smile from the other side of the room, to which she replayed with a ‘hey’ of her own, looking down at her feet.

“Good evening everybody” Laura was startled as the main screen right in front of them lit up with General Beckman speaking and looking right at them.

“I have called you here today to discuss the intel that Agent Karnstein… stumbled upon” she narrowed her eyes at Carmilla as she said this, clearly doubting her story. The spy had told the agency that and old criminal informant had given her the card and info, but had refused to name any names. She kept her face blank and stance normal while the General glanced her way.

“We think PHILO Industries, the famous insurance company, is actually a front for a great criminal organization. Mr Sloane is very likely working with or for them, and we fear stealing and developing poisonous weapons is just the tip of the iceberg. But, since we don’t have much information yet, we would like to send you on a simple reconnaissance mission for now. Miss Hollis will come with in case you find anything that might trigger the Intersect. I will brief you in detail tonight; the mission goes live tomorrow. You’re dismissed.” She ended the transmission immediately.

“Isn’t she warm and fuzzy” that earned her a chuckle from Kirsh.

“Well, I guess that means we have the night off. I’ll see you tomorrow, little nerd” he gave her a high five as he went for the door.

“Bye, Kirsch”

Laura looked around, realising it was now just her and Carmilla in the base. She suddenly felt nervous but decided now was as good a time as any to tell her what she had been thinking for the past couple of days now.

“You okay there? You seem worried. Don’t be, recon is a piece of cake” the spy’s words shook her out of her thoughts. She looked up at Carmilla, standing right in front of her.

“It’s not that” she shook her head. “Actually, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about” she suddenly thought of something and her eyes widened as she leaned closer, lowering her voice “we’re not being recorded right now, are we?”

Carmilla chuckled.

“No, creampuff. It’s just you and me.”

“Oh, okay. Good. Good.”

“Seriously Laura, what’s up?”

“I uhm… I’ve been thinking”

The spy gestured for her to go on. She bit her lip and took a deep breath before speaking up again.

“Okay, here’s the thing. You are quite extraordinary. To be honest, you’re everything I ever wanted and more. You’re ridiculously gorgeous, insanely smart, but not only smart, you’re clever and funny in an obnoxiously sarcastic way. Plus, you have this horrible habit of constantly saving my life.”

Carmilla chuckled at that, smiling in almost a shy way.

“And you’re sweet, even if you try to hide it” Laura looked up at Carmilla and her lips curved up in a small smile, but it turned sad while she continued.

“But I am not extraordinary. In fact, I am quite the definition of ordinary. And I am not a spy. I am just a normal girl, with a, well, semi-normal life. And every touch, every smile, every kiss,” Laura blushed a little, looking down at her feet for a moment.

“They’re real to me. Holding your hand is real. And the more we do it, the more we play pretend, the more I realise I can’t keep doing it. I just can’t. I know I will inevitably keep falling for you until a day will come when you have to leave, and I won’t ever see you again, and that will destroy me. So I think… I think I can’t prevent my heart from breaking but I can at least shield it a little,” Laura wiped a tear she didn’t realise she had from the corner of her eye. “I think we should break up. You know, like, fake break up our pretend relationship.”

Carmilla opened her mouth to speak but Laura kept going.

”We can do it after the mission tomorrow. I’ll just tell Laf and Perry that… I don’t know, I’ll think of something. I just can’t keep fooling myself into thinking this is something more than it is. It’s not fair to you and it’s really not fair to myself. So, uhm, there it is. Thanks for listening. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As soon as she stopped talking she was rushing out the door, barely giving Carmilla a moment to process everything she just said.

“Laura, wait” she tried to call after her, but the tiny girl was gone. Carmilla just stood there staring at the door, trying to fight the tears that were threatening to spill from behind her eyes.

 

 

The drive to the PHILO Industry, the company they would be infiltrating for the day, was predictably quiet, with only Kirsch making some funny remarks here and there and Laura attempting to laugh along with him while Carmilla simply ignored the both of them and stared out her window the whole time.

“All right ladies, see you in a couple hours” Krish said as he parked and started taking out the coms and equipment he’d need to survey the building while they investigated it from inside.

“Actually, you should take this one”

Both he and Laura looked at Carmilla incredulous and confused. “You’re right, I always partner up with the cupcake and technically we’re both her guardians so it’s only fair that we split the missions too. I’ll play tech nerd in here, you two take lead inside”

Kirsch and Laura exchanged weird looks and then looked back at the spy.

“Just go already will you? It’s no big deal” with that, she leaned over Kirsh and opened his door, encouraging him to get out the car, which he finally did. Laura lingered a little longer and Carmilla briefly met her eyes in the rear-view mirror. The small girl gave her a half smile as she left as well.

The building turned out to be a huge, modern looking skyscraper. Everything seemed perfectly organised and symmetrical, and even the people inside looked like they were designed to fit in the space.

“Hello there! I’m Brody and this is Laura. We’re here for the interview?” Kirsh grinned as he spoke to the receptionist while Laura simply stood there and smiled shily.

“Of course. Go right to that elevator and join the group on the first floor. You’ll find a guide there to show you around and explain what you’ll be doing here at PHILO” the woman spoke with a tight lipped smile. They thanked her and did as they were told. They did indeed find a group of weirdly calm looking aspiring employees and a guide who showed them around the first floor. It was all office rooms, each the same as the last.

“We should check in with Karnstein” Kirsch whispered as they kept following the others. Laura only nodded slightly.

“Something’s wrong” Kirsch whispered again, glancing her way.

“Oh, you noticed. Carmilla and I-“

“What? No, not that. Here. Something’s not right but I can’t put my finger around it. Everything’s too…”

“Perfect. It’s too clean, too organised, too silent. This is definitely a front for something, you need to ditch the boy scouts group and have a look around, they’re probably keeping the good stuff on higher floors” Carmilla finished for him as the coms had just been activated.

“Agreed. Little nerd, follow my lead” and with that he snuck into a secluded corridor as the guide and tour continued the other way. He found a door to the emergency stairs and was quick to go through it, Laura following suit. They looked around the second floor, then the third, but it was still all half empty rooms with nothing interesting in them.

“Can’t we just take the elevator?” Laura panted as they reached the fifth floor.

“Sorry L, there are cameras in there. In fact this place is pretty heavily guarded, even for an insurance company. Heavily guarded technologically yet I don’t think I’ve seen any actual guards” he said, pensive.

“Karnstein?”

“Nope, no guards in sight” Carmilla confirmed, sounding as worried about it as Kirsch looked, which in turn made Laura even more worried.

“Is that bad?”

“I don’t know. But it’s odd” he said as he pushed open the door to the 5th floor’s corridor.

They walked around a little, not seeing anything out of the ordinary but soon they found themselves in another big hallway, only this one didn’t have see-through glass office doors like all the ones before. The doors were all metal and even had a small portal to open them instead of handles.

“Curiouser and curiouser” Carmilla voiced their thoughts through the coms and Laura smiled despite herself at the reference. And they called _her_ a nerd.

“We’re going to need badges for that” Kirsch pointed to the door right before they heard footsteps coming from the end of the corridor. He turned to Laura.

“Hide. I’ll take care of this”, she ran back to where they came from and heard sounds of fighting from behind her. Not five seconds later the spy reappeared in front of her with a satisfied grin and two pass cards hanging from his fingers. Laura grabbed one and they used it to open one of the doors. Inside was what looked like an archive room of sorts, with a desk filled with files. Kirsch started reading some and furrowed his brows.

“What?” Laura asked him.

“These are government files” He sounded even more confused than he looked.

“What? Let me see” Laura took the document he was reading and immediately saw hundreds of images flashing in front of her eyes.

“Oh no. No, no, no, no.” She let the papers drop on the desk as she took a step back with a horrified look on her face.

“What? Laura what is it?”

“I flashed. On this, here. It is a front. A CIA front.” Kirsch looked even more confused than before.

“A rogue unit of the CIA, settled within its ranks, planning to overtake it, selling government secrets and developing new weapons to overthrow it. They’re called LOPHI, hence PHILO Industries. Not that clever to be honest. And since they’re CIA…”

A look of realisation hit Kirsch.

“They know we’re here” as soon as the words left his mouth a deafening alarm started blaring through the building. He took Laura’s hand and rushed out the room but there were already a few employees coming from the end of the hallway.

“Okay so, stairs are not an option,” he mumbled as he ran the opposite way, making sure the tiny girl was still behind him. “Keep going til the end, turn right and get into the first door you find, okay? I’ll be right there” Laura barely had any time to process this as he pushed her forward then turned around and started shooting at the people chasing them. She quickly turned right as she was told, getting out of the crossfire, and found a single door right there. She tried her badge but of course it didn’t work on this one. She could hear Kirsch fighting the bad guys and knew she didn’t have much time as she dismantled the digital portal and started playing with the wires, hoping her Buy More knowledge and total of three computer science courses she took at Stanford would save her now. She actually jumped from joy when she heard a beep and saw the light turn green, right before remembering the situation she was in and rushing inside. Not ten seconds later, she heard a knock on the door and yelped in fear before she recognised the familiar voice.

“Little nerd, let me in, now!” She quickly did, just in time for the spy to sneak in without the agents chasing him seeing it, they realised as they heard them walk past. He sighed in relief and leaned his back against the door before turning to Laura, who was standing next to him.

“That was close. That was too close. I don’t understand how any of this is happening”

“Kirsch…”

“We need to go back to that archive room and gather all the documents we can to bring back to Beckman”

“Kirsch.”

“At least now we know why they don’t have any guards, they’re all agents”

“KIRSCH!” Laura took his chin in one hand and turned his face towards the inside of the room, effectively shutting him up. He instead opened his mouth, widened his eyes and took a deep breath before finally speaking.

“Danny?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another chapter for you beautiful people. I wanted to try and have the next one finished before publishing this one but then I thought, screw it. I have it, you want it - maybe? Well, you still get it.  
> Please let me know in the comments if you liked the chapter and the story, or if you hated it even, I am open to constructive criticism. And it would be fun to know if any of you have any predictions for what might happen next. I am really not a criminal mastermind so you might just guess it right ;)  
> Thank you so much for reading!


	5. Laura vs. The Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People do things. Heroic things, dumb things. Heroically dumb things. People get saved, people get trapped. Everybody's confused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's okay if you don't remember where we left off:  
> After Laura confessed her feelings for Carmilla and told her they needed to fake break up, the two went on a mission with Kirsch. Carmilla chose to stay behind while Kirsch and Laura went to explore an office building, which unfortunately turned out to be full of rogue CIA agents from an organization called LOPHI. They hid in the first office room they could find and discovered something even more unexpected.

“What the frilly hell…” Laura mumbled. She took a small step forward and started taking the room in. It wasn’t particularly big but it gave that illusion because it was completely empty. There was a single window on the wall in front of the door, but its light was dimmed because of the small curtains draped over it. And right in the middle of it laid Danny Lawrence. NSA spy Danny Lawrence. Laura’s ex Danny Lawrence. Kirsch’s something Danny Lawrence. She was unconscious, probably had been for a while judging by the machinery she was attached to. She had wires coming in and out of her arms and head, keeping track of her heartbeat and brain activity.

“We need to get her out of here” Laura waited for a response and swiftly turned around when she didn’t get any.

“Kirsch?”

The spy just stood there, petrified. His fists were clenched and his eyes were staring at Danny so intently as if he were trying to will her to wake up with the power of his mind. Laura could see a thousand emotions fighting each other behind his stare and she carefully reached out to touch his arm, taking a small step towards him and speaking softly.

“We have to go now, Kirsch. It’s only a matter of time until they come back”

He didn’t move or give her any sign that he heard her, so she continued.

“Look, she’ll be fine. She is alive and breathing. We’ll take her with us and make her better but in order to do that, we have to save ourselves first”

She softly put a hand on his face and guided him so he was looking at her instead of Danny.

“We’ll get her back, I promise. Just help me get us all out of here right now and then we’ll figure it out, okay?”

He stared at her for a second before finally lowering his head and nodding. Seemingly shaking himself out of whatever state of shock he was in, he rushed to Danny’s side and started carefully but swiftly taking the wires out of her.

“Keep a look out, tell me if you see anyone coming”

Laura did as she was told while he finished getting Danny out bed and managed to pick her up, bridal style. Once he was at her side, Laura cautiously opened the door, making sure there was no one around. It seemed they were in luck, so they rushed down the corridor looking for a way out, which, unfortunately, was nowhere to be found.

“We have to go back to the stairs”

Just as he finished saying that, they heard noises coming from that direction.

“Why is it never easy” Laura whined. They walked towards the noise but Kirsch stopped before turning the last corner and put Danny down, leaning her against the wall.

“Wait here, I’ll take care of them. And, uhm, take this” he awkwardly handed her a gun and she widened her eyes at him.

“What? No! No way. I’m not an agent, I can’t shoot. I’m not even sure I want to”

“You might not have a choice. Take it.”

She eyed him once more but finally gave in and took the handle of the gun between her thumb and index finger as if it was going to explode on her at any second. Kirsch rolled his eyes before taking out one gun per hand and going full Rambo on the agents that were fast approaching from the hallway.

Laura closed her eyes and held the gun firmly in front of her with both hands, willing the sounds of shots and people being hit to go away, or at least trying to pretend she was just playing Call of Duty with Laf like they always did when they were younger.

She only opened her eyes again when she felt someone unceremoniously drop next to her.

“There are more coming” he looked down at his only remaining gun “I don’t have enough ammo to hold them off much longer. We have to find another way to get Danny out of here”

Laura scrunched her face a little as she remembered something.

“I saw the blueprints of the building when I flashed earlier. There’s meant to be an elevator on the other side of this floor. All the agents think they’ve got us trapped here so they’re all coming from this side, but if we make it there…”

“We can get out. Nice going, little nerd!” Kirsch grinned and actually held his hand up for her to fist bump. She only hesitated for a second before giving in and smiling back at him.

“I’ve got bad news though”

He said after they both got up, handing his gun to Laura.

“Unless you think you can carry Danny to the other side of the floor, you’ll have to cover us”

“Oh. Oh!” She slightly panicked as she picked up the second gun but didn’t even bother to argue because she knew he was unfortunately right. They walked through a few hallways following Laura’s directions while the girl squeaked and jumped every time they turned a corner, afraid she’d have to shoot someone. They were just a couple turns away from the elevators when Laura suddenly stopped in her tracks.

“Wait! We need to go back.”

“What? Why?”

“The documents! We can’t know what we’re up against without them”

“It’s okay little nerd, we have you”

“Whatever info is in my head is at least a few weeks old, not to mention I’m pretty sure I’ve already flashed on it all and there really wasn’t much of it. We need those files”

Kirsch looked at her pleadingly, knowing though she might be right, getting Danny to safety was his first priority. He was about to say exactly that when they heard the sound of the elevator reaching their floor and both immediately turned towards it, Laura clumsily pointing the gun she was holding at it.

“Relax, sundance. I have no intention of shooting you”

Carmilla came out of the opening doors with her hands in the hair.

“In fact, I’m here to rescue you” she smirked.

“Karnstein, what are you doing here?”

“It sounded like you needed help”

Both Kirsch and Laura gave her a puzzled look, in response to which she only rolled her eyes and pointed at her ear.

“Your coms, you amateurs. I’ve heard everything. I’m going to help Laura go back and get the documents while you” she turned to Kirsch and threw him the van keys that he barely managed to catch while still holding Danny, “get Lawrence to safety. I’ve called Beckman to get us another way out of here.”

Kirsch nodded and ran into the elevator after Laura handed him one of his guns back. As the doors were closing on him, he looked at Carmilla with genuine gratitude and Laura thought she saw a brief smile on her face in response. She didn’t get to ponder much over it though, as Carmilla turned to her with a serious face.

“We haven’t got much time. Lead the way.”

Laura ran back to the archive room with Carmilla right behind her and left the spy to guard the door as she opened the computer and started transferring all the LOPHI data she could find on her key drive.

“Not to pressure you or anything, but we’re kind of in a rush. We’ve got incoming,” Carmilla said as she looked at the tablet she was holding, presumably tapped into the security cameras.

“They’ll be here in 30 seconds”

“I’m trying! It’s copying stuff, I can’t make it go any faster”

“15 seconds”

“Carm, I-“ she stopped as she heard the sounds of footsteps running towards the room they were in.

“Cupcake, we gotta go. NOW.” Laura grabbed the key drive just as Carmilla grabbed her hand and they both ran out the door towards the elevator, the spy letting go of Laura so she could shoot at the people chasing them with two guns. She overthrew a cart filled with files that they passed in the corridor, hoping to slow them down. As they turned the corner there was an odd metallic sound and both Laura and Carmilla stopped suddenly to stare at the end of the corridor where it originated.

“What the…”

A door had seemingly appeared out of nowhere from one side of the wall, sliding to the other side and effectively taking away their only exit. Both girls turned to look back at where they came from, hearing footsteps approaching fast, and then turned to look at each other.

“Is there any other way out?”

Laura frowned, trying to recall the blueprints.

“Not down, no. I could get us to the roof but then we’d just be stuck there instead of here”

Carmilla ducked, taking Laura with her as shots started being fired at them.

“Lead the way”, she got up, Laura following suit, and put a hand on her earpiece while gripping her gun and pointing it behind them with the other.

“Kirsch, send an helicopter to pick us up”

“Yes, ma’am”

Carmilla managed a half smile before shooting twice, taking down two guys who had gotten dangerously close.

“They’re catching up and I’m running low on ammo”

“We’re almost there”

Laura let out in a pant, just as she turned one last corner. She could hear the agent firing her gun right behind her and she let herself rest against the wall for a second, catching her breath. Carmilla turned the corner, already running and grabbed Laura’s hand as she passed her.

“Move!”

Laura could feel herself being dragged forward as the spy sprinted towards the end of the hallway, and only mid-run did she notice another sliding door quickly closing right in front of her. She willed her feet to go faster, ignoring her burning lungs and trembling legs. She could see the opening between the walls getting slimmer and slimmer, as did their chance of getting out of there in one piece. She knew Carmilla was slowing down to help her, and she knew they were never going to make it. Not both of them. She took out the key drive with all the data they had recovered, quickly dropping it into the spy’s leather jacket pocket. She ran the last few feet as fast as her tiny, struggling legs would take her and when they finally reached the end of the corridor, she let go of the other girl’s hand and let her whole body fall forward, extending her arms in front of her to push Carmilla through the door before it finally closed between them with a loud thud.

The spy was so focused on getting to safety, she realised what was happening too late. She felt Laura push her through the opening and heard the sound of the door closing as she turned around. She felt like time stopped and everything happened in slow motion. Looking up at the other girl through the porthole with a mix of anger and terror, she saw Laura mouth the words “Go” and “I’m sorry”. She caught a glimpse of the girl putting her hands behind her head as the guards started to show up behind her. She felt herself turn around, run to a door, up the stairs, entering a helicopter, and simply sitting there, with a void look on her face and a heavy feeling in her chest.

 

 

“So then Miss Hollis proceeded to guide me through the building, to the elevators and I got Danny- I mean, Agent Lawrence to the car and back here whilst Agent Karnstein stayed behind with the asset to recover the data”

“I see. Well, I am glad you could find your partner and ensure her safety. I will discuss how to deal with the situation with my colleagues and get back to you two soon. Meanwhile keep an eye on Agent Lawrence and call me if anything changes.”

And just like that, General Beckman closed the call. Kirsch sighed and turned to look at Carmilla, who was already facing the other way, staring at Danny’s unconscious body through the glass window of her temporary room. They had set her up in one of their newly constructed chambers in their base below the Buy More; they could double as prison cells, hospital rooms, Kirsch even used them to nap a couple times, though how he managed to find time for that in their busy secret spy schedule was a mystery to all. If he had walked in on anybody else in the spy’s position, he would have thought her to be worried about Danny and hoping for her to wake up soon. He knew Carmilla must have been worried, although she would never admit it, and definitely wanted her to wake up, but it wasn’t Danny she was thinking about as she stared ahead.

“There must be something we can do to wake her up”, she spoke up after she saw Kirsch coming to stand next to her from the corner of her eye.

“We’ve tried. All the usual methods failed. She’s in some sort of induced coma, and we can’t pump her full of drugs, any one of them could react badly with whatever’s already in her system and-“

“I know!” Carmilla snapped. When she didn’t hear any kind of retort, she turned to see the NSA agent beside her looking more than ever like a kicked puppy and she softened her tone as she continued.

“I know. But there has to be a way, there’s something we’re not seeing”

Kirsch heard the sadness the other agent was trying to conceal and answered quietly as he glanced at her.

“Our best scientists are on it. If there’s a way, they’ll find it. But for now, all we can do is wait”

“I can’t do that. There _has_ to be a way to make this quicker, we have to wake her up!”

“Carmilla…”

The girl turned to look at him, mostly shocked to hear him call her by her actual name for possibly the first time ever, but she didn’t punch him through the wall like he half expected she might, so he dared to keep talking.

“I get that you want to save Laura, I really do. And I want Danny to wake up more than anyone – trust me. But we just can’t rush it. I hate feeling powerless just as much as you do”

Carmilla studied him for a moment before lowering her gaze with a sigh.

“I should have been there. I shouldn’t have let you guys go in alone. Laura and I… we had a discussion before the mission, and I thought me sitting this one out would be good for her. Give her some space. She is quite… emotionally involved”

“Oh like you aren’t”

If looks could kill, the evil eye Carmilla shot him right there would have ended him. Kirsch put his hands up defensively.

“Hey, I’m not judging. But I’m not blind either. And it takes no spy to see that you care about her”

The girl kept glaring at him some more. After a few seconds of silence, she spoke again.

“She is good. Genuinely, unapologetically, maddeningly and completely good. She has the biggest heart I’ve ever seen. I don’t think what little is left of my faith in humanity could survive losing that”

Kirsch didn’t say anything but he gave her a knowing, crooked smile.

“Oh, shut up”, Carmilla shoved his arm and her lips actually curved up a little. Any semblance of normalcy soon died out as they both laid their eyes on Danny’s unconscious body on the other side of the glass and their reality kicked back in.

“I’m going to go home and revise some of those files we retrieved. Maybe there’s something in there that can help us get Laura back. Call me as soon as you hear anything or anything here changes, even the smallest thing”

Kirsch silently nodded.

“And don’t let her out of your sight”, she added, glancing at Danny.

“Wasn’t planning on it”

Kirsch’s eyes were fixated on his partner as Carmilla headed up the stairs and left the base.

 

 

The cool windy air caught her by surprise when she exited the Buy More. She crossed her arms in front of her, trying to pull on her leather jacket even tighter to get more warmth as she started walking towards her hotel room/current home. She only took about five steps before she was called back.

“Carmilla?”

The spy stopped in her tracks and turned around.

“Laf,” she put her hands in her pockets in an attempt to seem more casual than she felt, “Hi. How are you?”

“I’m good, thanks. Hey, have you seen Laura?”

Straight to the point.

“Isn’t she working?”

“She isn’t, I was just inside but she was nowhere to be found. Thought maybe she was with you?”

“I’m sorry, I have no idea where she is”

Laf nodded, furrowing their brows. Carmilla hated seeing Laura’s friend so worried and having to lie to them about her. She was about to excuse herself from this torture of a conversation when the scientist spoke up again.

“Is she okay?”

“Why wouldn’t she be?” Carmilla answered, startled by the unexpected inquiry.

Laf bit their lower lip, avoiding her gaze for a moment, seemingly pondering their next words. Then they took a step closer to her and stared her straight in the eyes as they whispered

“Look, I know”

Carmilla raised her eyebrows.

“You know?”

Laf nodded very seriously and very vehemently.

“I do”

“And what exactly do you know?” Carmilla enquired, narrowing her eyes.

The scientist looked around them, then moved even closer and whispered again.

“Everything”

Carmilla regarded them, contemplating her next move. She took a step closer and kept walking towards the Buy More, dragging them along with her by their arm.

 

“Talk”

Carmilla demanded, dropping Laf on the couch in the Buy More’s surprisingly well furnished coffee room. She had locked the door and drawn the curtains and was now standing in front of the scientist, with her arms crossed across her chest, staring at them expectantly.

“I uhm… I know Laura’s a spy. I know you are too. And our neighbour Kirsch. Though that one’s a bit of a mystery to me”

They chuckled awkwardly. Carmilla’s expression didn’t change in the slightest, so they figured they should keep talking.

“Don’t be mad at Laura, she really didn’t want to tell me. She’s just such a bad liar and she's even worse at keeping secrets, and I could see something was up so I made her tell me, okay?”

“What did she tell you?”

The girl didn’t look angry or threatening, only a bit wary and definitely serious, so Laf decided to just be completely honest.

“She told me Danny sent her a collection of images that somehow put a computer in her brain with all the government’s secrets so now she’s some kind of Sherlock-type consultant who helps you guys with your super awesome spy missions. And then she mentioned something about poison and an ex?”

Carmilla glared at them just then so they quickly decided to change the subject.

“I’m just worried is all. I mean, I’m no Perry, but this is my best friend we’re talking about. Sure, it’s cool to know she’s helping keep the world safe, and don’t think I didn’t notice she’s finally happy with her life again. But as I said, she did mention poison. And possibly a bomb at some point? That girl talks so fast, it’s hard to keep track sometimes. Just, tell me she’s okay. I promise I won’t tell anyone about this.”

The agent studied them for a second before uncrossing her arms with a sigh and switching her neutral, careful expression for a frowning, concerned and concerning one.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that”

“What do you mean you can’t do that?”

Carmilla was silent for a moment, biting her lower lip and bringing a hand through her messy hair.

“I really shouldn’t tell you. You already know more than you should.”

“So one extra secret won’t really make a difference anyway now, right?”

The spy decided that they were probably right, and a fresh pair of eyes going through all the events she had been replaying in her mind for the last few hours could do nothing but good.

“We went on a recon mission earlier. Big building, mostly offices. Was supposed to be quick and easy. Nothing’s ever easy I guess”, she said bitterly, sighing once again and then letting everything out all at once.

“Turns out it was actually a rogue cell of the CIA full of turned agents who tried to kill us all. Kirsch and Laura stumbled upon a comatose Danny while they were trying to get out, I stayed behind to help Laura get some files while the big guy brought the Amazon back and then… Laura, she… She didn’t make it out.”

Carmilla avoided Laf’s gaze as she added the last part, feeling responsible for what happened to their friend.

“But we’re doing everything we can to find her. Scientists are working around the clock to find a way to counteract whatever drug is in Lawrence’s system, and the NSA and CIA are both analysing all the data we retrieved. I was on my way to revising it once again myself when I bumped into you.”

Lafontaine waited for her to stop talking and then slowly lowered their eyes. They didn’t talk for a while, and Carmilla was about to tell them to leave and never speak of this to anyone ever, so she could go back to work, when they finally looked up at her and opened their mouth.

“What kind of drug?”

The spy frowned, puzzled.

“Excuse me?”

“You said Danny was injected with a drug. Do you know what kind? If it was a simple barbiturate I assume your scientists would have cracked a solution already. Still, it has to be some enhanced variation on pentobarbital or thiopental. Is there any chance I can get a sample of her blood, take it home for some analysis and get back to you?”

Carmilla stared at Lafontaine, trying to take in everything they had just said. She really wanted to laugh in their face for asking to take home an agent’s blood, containing an unknown, potentially dangerous drug, and implying they could outdo the government’s best medical team in a matter of minutes, with their crappy home equipment. Right after this train of thought however, she found herself actually considering what the scientist was suggesting. It had to be done differently, of course, but Laura had repeatedly told her how brilliant her friend was, and the CIA background check she ran when she first met them confirmed that. They had even been screened to become a part of their research team but were later dismissed because of their absolute lack of safety concerns.

“Okay”

“Okay?”

Laf couldn’t hide their excitement as they jumped on their feet with a huge grin spread across their face.

“Don’t make me regret this more than I already do. Now put this on.” The agent handed her a scarf that was sitting on one of the chairs. Lafontaine eyed it carefully.

“Do you even know whose this is?”

Carmilla raised her eyebrows at them, still holding the scarf.

“Right. Doesn’t matter. Here we go.”

 

The agent made sure to take them all the way around the Buy More, making a lot of turns and spinning them around themselves multiple times as to conceal the base’s exact location. She knew they were smart and would figure out where it was, or at least its general location, but if she were being honest with herself, bringing a civilian into a secret government headquarters screamed horrible idea, and this was a little something to ease her tormented conscience. She made Lafontaine whirl around on themselves some more as they stood right in front of the door, and then guided them inside.

Thankfully only Kirsch was present as she helped them down the stairs. As soon as he saw the two of them, he sprinted towards them, widening his eyes and lowering his voice.

“What are you doing?”

“Laura told them everything. They’re a great scientist. They offered to help.” She shrugged nonchalantly.

“They offered- do you hear yourself? This is, or was, a super secret spy base with, like, super secret government secrets! You can’t just bring any random person in here!”

“Ouch” Lafontaine mockingly brought a hand to their heart as they awkwardly stood there, still blindfolded. Carmilla grabbed Kirsch’s arm and steered him out of Laf’s hearing distance.

“Look, you said it yourself. To find Laura, we need to wake Danny. To wake Danny, we need a great scientist. I give you, a great scientist”, she turned to Laf, who was clumsily trying to walk forward, holding their arms in front of themselves in a manner that resembled Frankenstein’s monster’s. The spy rolled her eyes at the sight. Kirsch just looked at them for a moment before finally giving in, shaking his head.

“This has got to be against protocol”

 

 

She woke up with the worst migraine of her life. For a couple of seconds, she tried to remember what she could have possibly done the night before to reduce herself in this state. She attempted to open her eyes but the light blinded her, and even when she managed to blink a little, her vision was still blurry. And she couldn’t figure out for the life of her how she could have fallen asleep sitting down.

Only when she attempted to put a hand on her head and found that her wrists were handcuffed together behind her back, it finally all clicked together. Oh no. No, no, no. She had went and gotten herself captured. She attempted to groan at her own actions but found that only a muffled sound came out as she had tape on her mouth.

She sighed, as well as she could in her current position, and put her head against the wall behind her, trying to accept her fate. This was it. This was the end of Laura Hollis. It wasn’t too bad, she guessed. If this were one of her beloved TV shows, this would be a good time to kill her off; she had finally had some adventures in her life and managed to help people on the way, at least she hoped so. She told her best friend about her secret double life, and she knew they were happy for her. She even managed to girl the hell up and tell her beautiful CIA guardian agent how she felt about her. And got captured saving said agent.

She supposed it was time for her character to die a heroic death.

Just as she was trying to muster up her courage and face her imminent end with dignity, she heard a door flying open and the sound of footsteps filled the air. She could only see three silhouettes making their way towards her as a light blocked her view, coming from what she could now recognise was a lamp, strategically positioned right before her for that exact purpose, she assumed.

The footsteps came to a stop in front of her and she attempted to look up to her capturer, still unable to see them clearly.

“Good morning, sunshine”

Laura tried to glare at the woman but was too busy squinting to appear even remotely threatening.

“I do apologise for the poor venue. Old abandoned building, such a kidnapping cliché. But I am afraid what with you and your team storming our facility so rudely we had to improvise a little. Oh, I am sorry.”

She took a couple steps closer to Laura and yanked the tape from her mouth, causing her to grimace.

“What’s your name, darling?”

Laura regarded her warily. Now that she was closer and the light wasn’t blocking Laura’s vision anymore, she could see that it was actually a girl who didn’t even look that much older than her.

“What is yours?”

The girl smirked at her reply and there was something oddly familiar and slightly unsettling about it.

“My name is Emily Lancaster”, she smiled “and I ask the questions here.”

 

 

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this”

Carmilla stared in disgust and slight concern at the vial of fluorescent liquid that Laf was currently holding and carefully dripping some kind of powder into.

“You didn’t even need that much convincing” Laf grinned at her, earning a glare in return.

“Desperate times. Will it work?” She asked more seriously, turning to look through the glass wall on her right at the sleeping NSA agent.

Laf finished putting a small amount of their concoction in a syringe before looking the same way.

“Only one way to find out.”

The sound of the automatic doors opening woke Kirsch with a startle. He was almost cute, falling asleep with his head in his hand in the chair next to Danny’s bed, determined not to leave her side. That is, until one noticed the drool on his chin, which, to his merit, he was quick to wipe away as he stood up when he saw Carmilla and Laf walk in.

“Is it ready?”

Carmilla simply nodded, standing at the end of the bed while Lafontaine went around Danny and carefully took her arm. They were about to inject her with their homemade antidote when Kirsch stopped them.

“Wait!”

They immediately froze but he only took a step closer to Danny and took her hand in both of his before looking up at the scientist.

“Okay, do it”

Lafontaine injected the medication into Danny’s arm and the reaction was almost immediate. Her heart rate spiked, the monitors beeping uncontrollably, and she started having a small seizure.

“What is happening?” Kirsch’s eyes widened in worry and fear, not letting go of Danny’s hand through the whole thing.

“She’s crashing”

“What?!”

Kirsch looked like he was about to pound Lafontaine so Carmilla spoke before he could, pleading with the scientist with her eyes.

“Well can’t you do something?”

Lafontaine didn’t answer, they just waited a moment to see if the reaction would die down on its own. When it didn’t, they reached for the machine next to the bed and pushed a few buttons. The seizure immediately stopped but the constant beeping of Danny’s heartbeat turned into a flat noise. They immediately started compressions and when they stopped, after a minute or so, the agent’s heart rate slowly went back to normal.

“I am so sorry, Kirsch” they apologised after a moment of silence.

He didn’t speak, he only looked down at Danny with watery eyes before letting himself fall back into the chair next to her bed, with his head in his hands.

The scientist was about to speak again but Carmilla looked at them and subtly shook her head. They looked at Kirsch and nodded in understanding, moving to join the girl and leave the two NSA agents alone.

They were almost out the door when they heard a cough. They both turned around, confused, as Kirsch slowly lifted his head from his hands. Danny was looking as still and unconscious as she did a second ago. After a bit, though, there was another cough from the redheaded spy, and then another, as she slowly started opening her eyes.

“D-Bear!” Kirsch jumped to his feet and took her hand back in his, flashing her his biggest, dopiest smile. Danny looked like she attempted to roll her eyes at the nickname, but she also smiled back at the human puppy.

“Xena”

Carmilla greeted from the end of the bed.

“Fangface”

They both looked at each other trying really hard not to smile or show in any way that they were happy the other was alive. Danny’s eyes then landed on the person next to Carmilla and she furrowed her brows, attempting to sit up straighter so she could make sure she was seeing things right.

“Laf?” She said in a groan, pain shooting through her from her movements.

“Hey, hey, hey, careful there” the scientist ran to her side and gently helped her lie with her back on a pillow.

“It’s good to see you, Danny”

“You too…” The girl still looked and sounded completely puzzled as they stared at her short haired friend from university.

“And I think you just saved my life, judging by that terrifying blue liquid over there” she quickly glanced at the syringe still lying on a table next to the bed. “So I don’t really know how to put this kindly. Thank you of course, but… what the hell are you doing here?”

Carmilla snorted.

“Whatever they gave you seems to have inhibited what little touch you had there, Clifford”

This time Danny managed to pull off a pretty acceptable eye roll.

“I am obviously very grateful to them, to you all” she looked around the room and lingered a little on Kirsch as he beamed at her like a kid on Christmas morning. “I just, I haven’t seen you since Stanford, forgive me if I am a little taken aback”

Lafontaine chuckled.

“It’s alright, really. But, is it really that surprising? I mean, the second you pulled Laura into this you had to know she’d be bringing me down with her”, they joked.

Danny’s eyebrows furrowed once more.

“What do you mean pulled Laura into this?”

“The night you were taken, on her birthday. You sent her the Intersect”, Carmilla explained calmly, waiting for Danny to remember, but the redhead was looking more confused than ever. She pondered for a second before finally looking up at them all.

“I didn’t send Laura the Intersect”

Carmilla, Kirsch and Lafontaine all exchanged looks before focusing back on Danny.

“Then who did?”

 

 

“Tell me your name and what you were doing at PHILO Industries”

The girl – Emily, if Laura was to believe her – asked, towering over her.

“I am no one”

“Don’t be cute with me, Arya Stark. Try again.”

Laura was surprised and slightly peeved that bad guys still got to watch amazing shows. She didn’t acknowledge the comment in any way, simply staring challengingly at her interrogator, keeping her mouth shut, as she stared right back.

“Let me handle her” one of the other agents, who had been standing in the background, watching the exchange, offered. He cracked his knuckles with a leering grin that made Laura’s insides shake.

“No need” Emily said with chilling calm, raising a hand to signal the man to stand down. Then she grabbed Laura by the neckline of her t-shirt, forcing her to stand up, and swiftly pulled a knife out, holding it to her throat. Laura could feel the blade against her neck as she breathed in and out and she could also feel any semblance of courage she had managed to muster up leave her more and more quickly with every exhale.

“Look sweetheart, I am done playing games. You are going to tell me what your name is and who you work for and anything else I want to know or I am going to mess up this pretty little face of yours. Slowly, and painfully. Understood?”

Laura swallowed audibly and nodded carefully.

“My name is Laura Hollis. I am a Buy More employee.”

She flinched expecting that to enrage the girl all the more, because, well, it did sound like a joke. But Emily actually faltered, as if being caught by surprise. Laura glanced down at the knife being held to her throat and noticed Emily’s hand had a ring on it. She felt her head tilt back a little as a flash of images appeared in front of her face. She lifted her head up again a couple seconds later and found a pair of piercing blue eyes staring right back at her, with the oddest look in them. A knowing look. Emily lifted the hand that was not holding the knife and subtly motioned Laura not to speak, holding her index finger in front of her mouth, before calling out.

“I think I will need to beat the sense of humour out of this one”

The guys behind her snickered.

“Leave us the room. And close the door behind you. Wouldn’t want the screams to disturb anyone.”

The two did as they were told, and neither girl moved until they heard the door’s lock clicking close. Emily suddenly let go of Laura, taking a step back. Her cold demeanour left its place to one of wonder and incredulousness.

“So it worked”, she almost whispered, looking Laura up and down before focusing on her eyes.

“You’re the Intersect.”


	6. Laura vs. The Present

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Backstory time! A little bit of Carmilla's, some of Laura's with just a dash of Danny's.  
> Laura gets acquainted with her capturer, Carmilla is worried and whipped, Kirsch is a Hollstein shipper and Danny is confused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's okay if you don't remember where we left off:  
> The team rescued a comatose Danny from the headquarters of evil organization LOPHI but Laura got captured. Carmilla feels guilty and desperately wants to rescue her, so much so she brings Laf in and they manage to wake Danny up, but she does not have the answers they were looking for. Kirsch is a very happy puppy. Laura wakes up in the middle of nowhere and is interrogated by a mysterious woman.

Laura didn’t even know where to start to process everything that just happened. One minute ago she was sure she was about to get her throat slit – and that was the best case scenario. Now, she wasn’t sure of anything anymore. She stared at the girl standing in front of her. She suddenly didn’t look so threatening anymore, and that was only a little due to the fact that she had lowered the knife as soon as the doors had closed. There was just something different in her eyes as she studied Laura in silent wonder.

“So it worked. You’re the Intersect”

Laura only blinked in response. She couldn’t bother being surprised anymore, she couldn’t even bother denying it, so she simply replied with a statement of her own.

“And you’re Ell”

The girl didn’t look fazed in the slightest that she knew this. She seemed pensive, and sad, and something else that Laura couldn’t quite put her finger on. Or maybe it was all in Laura’s imagination. Maybe the images she had just seen flash before her were clouding her judgement. Yet she couldn’t help replaying them in her head. She couldn’t un-see the cooler, femslash version of a James Bond film that apparently was Ell and Carmilla’s life. She couldn’t un-know that the ring Ell was wearing had been given to her by none other than Carmilla on a mission, but the blonde never took it off. She had heard before how inseparable the two were at the CIA, going from mission to mission, collecting successes and having romantic adventures all over the world, all the while just effortlessly saving it as a bonus. She had heard the stories, but actually seeing it all broke her heart in so many different ways. She could tell how well they worked together and how much they must have loved each other, or at least, how much Carmilla loved Ell. And she could only imagine, now more than ever, how the spy must have felt at her betrayal. She was devastated that Carmilla had to feel that way, and she was more selfishly crushed to see how much the spy had loved her partner.

She suddenly felt so full of rage and resentment for the blonde standing in front of her. How dare she hurt Carmilla the way she did, how dare she betray everything she stood for, everything they stood for together. But then it dawned on her. Ell was wearing the ring. The ring Carmilla gave her. It didn’t make any sense. If she didn’t care for the spy, why would she keep the one thing that could not only tie her to her, but also trigger Laura’s flashes? And if she knew she was the Intersect, why wasn’t she calling her goons back to take her?

“I know you probably have a lot of questions, but I’m afraid they’re going to have to wait a little bit longer”

Ell said, walking over to Laura and releasing her from her cuffs.

“Follow me”

Ell turned and started walking but Laura didn’t move an inch, only massaging her sore wrists for a second.

“Follow you? Are you insane? You were just threatening to slit my throat open with a knife! You put Danny in a coma, you kidnapped me, you- you betrayed Carmilla!”

Ell finally stopped walking and turned to look at her. She started speaking as she slowly made her way back to Laura.

“I didn’t put Danny in a coma, I saved her life. And I didn’t kidnap you, you trapped yourself, remember?”

She stopped walking when she was in front of Laura, a little too close for comfort, towering over her and staring her right in the eyes, causing her to swallow in slight fear.

“Whatever animosity you decided to have against me, you need to put it aside for the foreseeable future if you want any hope of getting out of here alive. Because I am that hope, sweetheart”

As much as Laura didn’t want to trust Ell, and it didn’t escape her that she had conveniently avoided explaining her betrayal, she still had no clue what was happening, and she knew she had no time to figure it out before getting killed. She also quickly came to the dreadful conclusion that Ell was right. She was her only hope of getting out of there.

The small girl mumbled a begrudged “fine” and reluctantly followed the blonde. When they reached the door, Ell made sure nobody was in the corridor outside before signalling Laura to move. They rushed to the end of the corridor and stopped before another door. They could hear people walking on the other side. As soon as the voices were gone, Ell went through the door with Laura following suit. The blonde guided her through the building, both girls walking fast and in silence, until she suddenly stopped. She threw her arm out in front of Laura and beckoned her to stay quiet with her finger on her own lips. She listened for a second more before mumbling.

“Shit”

Before Laura even knew what was happening, she was being unceremoniously dragged into the nearest room with Ell following her and swiftly closing the door behind her. The short girl opened her mouth but Ell shook her head with a warning glare. Laura was about to speak anyway when she heard people walking outside and the sound of equipment being moved. When the sounds appeared to be far enough, she finally whispered.

“What the frilly hell is this place?”

Ell simply rolled her eyes.

“LOPHI? Evil former-government unit trying to take over the world? You’re the intersect, aren’t you supposed to be quicker than this?”

Laura glared at her once again.

“I meant, what is this place specifically”, she gestured around with her hands, before adding “not the storage room you so rudely threw us in, the building you so rudely tied me up in.”

“You really hold a grudge don’t you?”

The girl in front of her didn’t appear the slightest bit amused. She rolled her eyes again but decided to answer her.

“We’re in a secluded area in the middle of the Silas woodland. I wasn’t lying before, you guys blew LOPHI’s biggest front, the only one in the city. They have a couple more of these safe houses but they’re barely equipped. That’s why _that_ is happening”, she motioned towards the door as she explained. They could still hear people going back and forth transporting machinery on the other side.

The two of them stayed silent for a minute, sitting in front of each other, their backs leaning on opposite walls as far away from the door as the small room permitted.

“How long do you think we’ll have to stay here? Won’t they try to come in? And what if they go and check on you ‘torturing me’ except neither you nor I are there? What about- “

“Wow, you really talk a lot”

“Yes, I hold grudges, I talk a lot and I don’t follow orders blindly. But you promised me answers and it seems like we’re stuck here so, I’m all ears”

This time it was Ell’s turn to glare.

“I didn’t promise you anything. But I guess yeah, we’ll be stuck here for a while” Laura opened her mouth but the girl anticipated her “no, I do not know how long but it might take some time if they plan to unload all the stuff they recovered from PHILO industries. They won’t try to come in because the stuff in here hasn’t been update since 1984 it seems”

She looked around at a gigantic old computer and a pile of dusty floppy disks sitting next to it.

“And hopefully they’ll assume I’m beating the shit out of you and won’t try to interrupt for a while”

“Well that’s comforting” Laura mumbled as the other girl just shrugged. They went back to being quiet but the small girl kept tapping her feet on the ground, biting her lower lip and sighing, sneaking glances at the blonde in front of her. Ell tried to ignored her but eventually caved.

“Okay, fine, let’s play your stupid game of 20 questions or whatever. As long as you stop all that fidgeting”, she motioned with her hand.

Laura bit her lip to try and stop her dorky smile from taking over.

“What’s your name?”

The blonde arched her eyebrow in disbelief and Laura had to stop herself from noticing how much that reminded her of Carmilla. Now that she knew the connection, she couldn’t help but notice all the similarities between the two, little things they would do and say without even realising it.

“We went over this already. Emily Lancaster.”

Laura furrowed her brow so the girl elaborated.

“Ell was Carmilla’s nickname for me. It eventually became my agency name as well” she shrugged. When Laura didn’t reply, she turned her eyes to look at her.

“Oh honey, I’m sorry. Did she never give you a nickname?”

Laura’s eyes snapped to meet the girl’s in a mix of sadness and anger. Carmilla did give her a nickname, she gave her plenty of them. But now, she just didn’t think they meant as much.

“I- she- of course not, why would she?” she lied.

“Relax, I’m just playing with you. I know she cares. I saw the footage from when we trapped you. That’s why I wanted to meet you in person. I wanted to see who took my place”

For a moment Ell’s apparently detached demeanour gave way to something softer, and Laura thought she saw actual hurt flash behind her eyes. But the girl blinked and it was gone.

“I didn’t take your place, I’m not Carmilla’s- I’m just her partner. As in, professional partner. Platonic, professional partner”

“Mm-mm. Nice alliteration there, PPP” Ell smirked a little, enjoying Laura’s obvious discomfort.

“There’s still one thing that I don’t understand though. Why are you helping me?”

“Because you’re the intersect”

“Yeah but how did you-“

Ell suddenly leaned forward, putting her hand on Laura’s mouth. Both girls listened closely. There was the sound of a car, a big one most likely, leaving in the distance and then just silence.

“Do you hear that?”

Ell let go of Laura’s mouth.

“Hear what?”

Ell smirked once again and damn did she resemble Carmilla when she did it.

“Exactly”

 

 

“This does not make any sense. Let’s just, go over it one more time” Carmilla sighed, running a hand through her hair in frustration.

Danny was about to start speaking again but Kirsch cut her off.

“We’ve been through this at least ten times already. Danny just got out of a coma, she shouldn’t even be standing-“

“I’m fine, Kirsch” Danny said from her spot behind him, trying to hide that she had to lean against the table behind her in order to keep standing. “Plus, I got Laura into this. Well, not directly but still, she got trapped saving me so I feel responsible nonetheless”

Her partner looked like he was about to object once more but she just glared at him and turned her gaze to Carmilla, recounting the events of the night she was captured.

“So, our director found out a group of rogue agents inside the NSA and CIA were planning to copy the contents of the Intersect to their own servers and sell it to the highest bidder. Needless to say that would have been catastrophic to say the least.

All of this was of course very top secret and it had to be handled quietly, in order not to tip off the agents who were inside our own organizations, nor anybody else because if this got out-”

“it would be catastrophic. Alright, Lawrence, we get it, get to the point” Carmilla interrupted her tiredly, not trying to be rude but wanting to get to the part of the story they needed right now. She had already heard it numerous times that night but she knew there must be something obvious they were all missing, and she just had to find that missing piece of the puzzle to get Laura back. And to defeat LOPHI of course, and save the world and all that jazz. Of course.

“Right. I managed to sneak into the Intersect room while my whole team was left behind dealing with the traitors. I saved the data on my phone, destroyed the original and ran out of there as fast as I could. I thought I had made it when I heard a shot.”

She looked down at her bandaged stomach and let her hand ghost over the spot above her right hip, where the wound was, almost completely healed now.

“I fell to the ground, saw Ell run towards me. The last thing I saw was her kneeling over me. I think I heard other people coming but I lost consciousness before I could identify anyone else. And then I woke up here, three months later apparently.”

She looked around a little before settling her eyes back on Carmilla, who seemed completely lost in her head. After a few seconds, Kirsch moved towards Danny.

“Alright, now will you let me take you to bed?”

Danny gave him a glare and he swiftly corrected himself.

“I mean _your_ bed, D-Bear. To rest. Gee, get your head out of the gutter” he gave her a wink and a dopey grin and held his arms out to help her walk back to her temporary room. She rolled her eyes but accepted his help.

Just as she was pushing herself off the table she had been leaning on and into his arms, a strange noise came from the base door.

“Is that…”

“A knock” Carmilla confirmed, her eyebrows raised incredulously.

“On our super-secret government base door?” Kirsch whispered.

“Well I don’t think killers and criminals would bother to knock, if that’s what you’re suggesting” Carmilla whispered back.

He didn’t have any time to reply as they heard a voice from the other side of the door.

“Hey guys, it’s me. Open up. Please.”

The three turned their heads to the sound in perfect unison. Getting over the shock pretty quickly, the dark haired girl rushed to open the door, only half registering Danny’s whispered warning that it might be a trap. She still quickly glanced at the small screen on the wall next to the handle, confirming the visitor’s identity.

When she finally opened the door, she couldn’t help the wave of relief she felt taking over her body, accompanied by the goofiest smile that had ever grazed her face, which biting her lip did little to hide.

“Hey”

Laura simply said with a smile of her own, be it a tired one.

“Hey”

The two just stared at each other for a couple of seconds, before Carmilla rushed forwards, basically tackling the shorter girl, almost causing her to lose her balance in the process, and wrapped her in a tight hug. Getting over her initial shock, Laura relaxed into the embrace, putting her arms around the spy and closing her eyes, letting the much needed familiar feeling of safety cradle her.

Kirsch observed the exchange with a dopey grin of his own, knowing how much Carmilla had truly been worried about the smaller girl and happy they could be together again. He was also really happy that he had fresh and fantastic munition to make fun of the broody spy for the rest of eternity. Danny on the other hand, was completely stunned, staring at the two girls as if she were witnessing a panther in a dancing gown having tea with the queen. Kirsch looked over to her just as she turned her head to look at him, silently pleading with her eyes to explain the crazy sight in front of them, but the agent simply shrugged, his grin only getting bigger.

Carmilla reluctantly let go of Laura, keeping a hand on her waist and moving a strand of hair away from her face with the other. When the shorter girl winced at the gentle touch, she released her completely, her worried eyes scanning her over. They settled on the open cut on Laura’s forehead before registering the bruises on her wrists, and a smaller one at the base of her throat.

“Laura, what happened to you?”

The girl bit her lower lip, shifting her gaze from the floor to anywhere but those dark eyes full of concern.

“I, uhm… I met Ell”

Carmilla’s expression immediately turned colder.

“What?”

“Yeah, she…” Laura was about to explain everything that happened when her gaze finally landed past Carmilla’s shoulder, to the other occupants of the base.

“Oh my gosh, Danny!”

The small girl ran to hug her old friend.

“Ow, careful there, Hollis. I have some battle wounds of my own”

Laura realised her height – or lack thereof – had meant she wrapped her arms right around Danny’s bandage and she immediately felt a wave of guilt wash over her.

“I am so sorry. Are you hurt? I mean of course you’re hurt, but did _I_ hurt you? I hope I didn’t hurt you because we went through so much trouble to get you out- which, by the way, you’re awake! That’s amazing! Wait, how are you awake? What did I miss?”

Laura looked around, directing that last question at the two spies she had come to know as her team. When she turned back to Danny she saw the tall redhead smiling at her whilst shaking her head slightly.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m just glad to see you haven’t changed. As far as what you’ve missed… I feel like I’ve missed quite a lot as well”

Danny added, looking at Carmilla, who was just awkwardly standing behind them where Laura had left her. The short girl glanced in the direction where Danny was looking and quickly looked back at her, her cheeks already turning red.

“Yeah, that’s uh, a long story”

To avoid further questioning, she spun around to greet Kirsch, who had been standing next to Danny that whole time. He greeted her with a huge smile and a side hug.

“Hey little nerd. I am really glad you’re okay, we were all very worried.”

“That’s very sweet, Kirsch, thank you”

“I think you should get that cut cleaned and then you and D-Bear should go rest for a while. You can take one of the other beds in the base”

Laura’s face suddenly fell and she started panicking.

“Oh no, actually I can’t! I need to go home, like, yesterday. How long have I been gone? I am surprised Perry hasn’t sent a search team for me already. She will so kill me.”

She turned around and motioned to walk out the door when she bumped into Carmilla, who caught her by the shoulders, effectively stopping her.

“Relax, spaz. We’ve got you covered” the spy smirked and even winked at her for good measure.

“What? How?”

“How do you think the Amazon’s awake?”

Carmilla watched the penny drop and Laura finally realising what that implied.

“Did Laf- were they here? Carm, I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to tell them, they just, they’re my best friend and-“

“Laura, don’t worry about it. It’s fine. Well, I mean, it isn’t really, we could all get into a lot of trouble but, for now, it’s fine. They saved Danny and they promised to cover for you with Perry. I think they told her you were staying with me.”

“For 24 hours straight?” she retorted, unconvinced. “What could we possibly be doing for that- oh. Oh.” The blush she had barely managed to contain earlier came back in full force, only worsened by Carmilla’s smug smirk.

“Okay, well, I still need to go home to get changed and maybe sleep because I feel like I haven’t done that in forever, if we don’t count being drugged and dropped in a dirty room in the middle of nowhere as rest. Oh by the way, the woodlands by highway 59, about 2 miles in, there’s an old abandoned cottage. The new LOPHI headquarters are being built under that. They’re still putting it together though, so if you send someone right away you might be able to put them away for good. Could you tell Beckman that please and then maybe you or Kirsch could check out my head wound? It’s actually hurting pretty bad now and I think I see spots”

She swayed a little as she said that last part. Carmilla quickly put her hands out to hold her up.

“Hey, hey, hey, Laura, slow down. Let’s get you somewhere a little more comfortable. Kirsch-“

“On it” he nodded, understanding what she was about to ask him and moving to call Beckman and tell her everything.

Carmilla carefully helped Laura into one of the rooms they had in the base. She left the smaller girl sitting on the bed to grab a first aid kit and when she came back no more than 15 seconds later, Laura was already lying on the sheets, her eyes closed. The spy stood on the doorway for a moment, unable to stop the small smile that soon took over her face. She walked over and sat on the bed next to Laura, gently moving her hair from her face.

“Try not to move too much, sweetheart, okay? I’m going to dress your wound”

Laura opened her eyes and simply nodded. She did however wince and glare at Carmilla when the spy applied a disinfectant on her forehead, sticking out her tongue when she told her to ‘stop being such a baby’. She let herself relax and enjoy the girl’s delicate touch, closing her eyes with a sigh and relishing the comfort of the soft sheets. Carmilla thought she had fallen asleep and was a little startled when she heard a small voice mumbling something.

“I think, maybe, she isn’t really bad”

The spy furrowed her brows in confusion.

“Who?”

Laura didn’t open her eyes when she answered.

“Ell”

 

 

Laura woke up with a massive headache. Again. She groaned softly and snuggled into her covers, keeping her eyes tightly closed, enjoying the warmth of her own bed. Except after a moment she remembered, she wasn’t in her own bed. She sighed and opened one eye to study her surroundings. She could hear agents talking and running about in the base, but the room she was in was still completely empty and she quickly decided that she could give herself another five minutes of rest. But as she was about to let herself drift back to sleep, the most celestial smell hit her and her eyes snapped back open. She immediately sat upright and smiled wider than most people would think possible when she saw Carmilla come through her door with a steamy cup of hot chocolate in one hand and a bag of cookies in the other.

“Is that for me?” Laura asked, smiling a bit sheepishly as she stared at the food in the spy’s hands.

“You’re the only one here with the dietary habits of an over-excited child, cupcake” Carmilla smirked, sitting on the edge of the bed and handing the short girl her breakfast. Laura took a generous bite out of a cookie and gulped down a third of the hot chocolate.

“Oh my gosh Carm, this is SO good! I can’t believe you stopped on your way in just to get this for me”

Her adorable grin, complete with cream moustaches, made it impossible for Carmilla not to smile right back at her. She picked up one of the napkins she had taken with her and started wiping Laura’s face as the short girl blushed, realising she must have looked like an actual overly-excited child. Which, she was definitely not.

“Stopped on her way to work? She’s been sitting right there next to you aaaaall night” Kirsch teased with a wink as he passed the opened door to Laura’s room, only to be hit right in the face with the crumpled napkin Carmilla was using to help Laura.

“Don’t you have a mission to prepare for?” she called out as she made her perfect shot. Kirsch didn’t seem the slightest bit phased as he kept smiling like a dope and simply walked away.

“You stayed here all night?” Laura asked with a small voice. She thought she saw the hint of a blush on Carmilla’s cheeks as she averted her gaze before answering.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay”

Laura carefully but quickly put her cup on the bedside table and wrapped her arms around Carmilla’s shoulders.

“I am now” she replied, hiding her smile in the spy’s neck. They stood like that for a few moments before Laura quickly pushed away, still keeping her hands on Carmilla’s shoulders.

“Wait. What mission?”

Carmilla replied with a confused look, so she elaborated.

“You said Kirsch was preparing for a mission. What mission?”

The spy let go of Laura, repositioning herself on the bed and forcing the girl to let her hands drop as well.

“Oh, you know, just, uhm, neutralizing an enemy organization”

“Neutralizing an enemy organization?” Laura repeated, unconvinced, and Carmilla nodded, biting her bottom lip and avoiding the girl’s gaze.

“Like LOPHI?”

They finally locked eyes and both kept silent for a bit until Carmilla nodded again in defeat.

“Yes, as in LOPHI, but Laura I know what you’re going to say and-“

“I want to go!”

“-you can’t go”

Laura honest to Lestat pouted at that.

“Why not?”

“You know why. You literally just got back from being kidnapped not even 24 hours ago and you already want to throw yourself right back in?”

“What would _you_ do?”

Carmilla looked at the pleading girl making puppy eyes at her and she knew she had already lost.

“You’re killing me, Hollis” she sighed, shaking her head even as she was giving in.

“YAY! Thank you, thank you, thank you! You won’t regret this” Laura jumped up and down in her seat, grinning as she recognised she had won.

“Already am” the spy mumbled, but her small smile betrayed her.

 

“Alright, everybody. The mission is simple. We infiltrate LOPHI’s newfound base, gather all and any data you can get your hands on, and put an end to this sad excuse of an evil enterprise”

Everybody chuckled a little. About twenty people, each captain to a different tactics team, had been gathered in the base for what would hopefully be the final mission to take down LOPHI. They were currently all standing before Carmilla, eyes and ears captivated by the spy’s innate charm as much as her empowering words. Laura was most definitely not an exception, in fact she was so caught up in the raven-haired girl and her speech that she was more than a little startled when somebody spoke to her.

“Hey Laura. Did you come here to support the team as well?” Danny whispered, trying to mask her amusement at her friend’s twitchiness.

“Oh, hi Danny! No, I- well, yeah, I do obviously support the team but I am actually also joining them on the mission” Laura’s smile faltered as she saw the redhead’s face drop at her words.

“You’re kidding right? After everything that’s happened to you, you’re going to go back there? You’re not an agent, Laura!”

Danny was raising her voice and a few heads turned away from Carmilla, who was still speaking at the front of the base, towards the two of them. Laura mumbled an apology and shot her friend a look, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her to the nearest room she could find.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“Me? You’re the one with an apparent death wish!”

They started yelling at each other as soon as the door closed behind them.

“I do not have a death wish!”

“Oh, so this is just what? You trying to impress Broody McBrood with your reckless bravery?”

“What are you even talking about?”

Danny crossed her arms and shot a look through the glass window on the door to the room, from which they could see Carmilla still standing in front of everybody.

“Seriously? I don’t know if you’re being petty because of your history with her or jealous because of your history with me but either way, you’re definitely being ridiculous”

“Maybe I am being petty, heck, you can even call me jealous if you want but that is not the point. The point is you never knowing when to stop. You set yourself on these impossible crusades and let yourself be completely consumed and blinded by whatever it is you’re chasing, even when it could get you killed! This is exactly why I kept you out of this in college”

Laura was about to open her mouth to retort but Danny’s last words quickly caught up with her and filled the sudden and heavy silence between them. The redhead knew she made a mistake but it was too late now to take anything back. The small girl clenched her teeth and stared at her ex with narrow eyes. She swallowed a knot in her throat before finally speaking.

“Explain”

Danny looked into her eyes and when she didn’t find the tiniest bit of uncertainty, only determination, she lowered her head and backed a little, leaning on the counter behind her.

“Remember how in your final year, you were doing all that research for that exposé you were going to do on the dean? On how she was misappropriating school funds for herself?”

Laura nodded. Like she could ever forget.

“it wasn’t just that. She was actually the head of a huge criminal organization involved in everything from selling drugs to selling humans. She was known as The Mother”

The code name triggered a flash in the small girl’s head, a series of gruesome images flying before her.

“How do you-“

“Know all this? I was recruited only a few months before that”

“Wait, you mean you were already working for the NSA when we were… seeing each other?”

Danny shifted her gaze to the ground briefly, guilt flashing over her face as she nodded faintly.

“What does that mean? Was anything we ever had actually real? Were you just trying to get close to me to get information about the dean, or...” Laura trailed off, not even knowing how to end that sentence, and not wanting Danny to hear how hurt she sounded.

“No, Laura, of course not! It was real. I wasn’t an agent when we met but I did become one during that time. I am sorry I kept it from you, and I am sorry I pushed you away. I had to.”

The short girl was trying to process everything that she had just learnt but she still felt like something was missing.

“So what does any of this have to do with me?”

Danny took a deep breath and started explaining.

“A lot of Stanford’s classes and students are monitored by government agencies looking for promising recruits, whether it is brilliant minds, gifted athletes, or just generally above the average individuals. Students are given tests during their classes that are actually aimed to calculate their IQs and problem-solving prowess, as well as any other trait they deem necessary in an agent. Those who get a score between 95 and 100 are then contacted by the agency and offered a job.”

Danny paused and shifted awkwardly.

“You were one of the only few to ever get a full 100”

“I took the test?” Laura’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“Yeah, you did. That’s why when you got on the dean’s trail for your final investigative journalism class, the agency covered for you so she wouldn’t know a student of all things was onto her. They also wanted to see how much you could find out on your own. They were very impressed with your work”

Laura couldn’t help but scoff.

“Bet you they weren’t so impressed when it got me kicked out of school and right into the Buy More”

Danny couldn’t meet her eye. Laura was puzzled at first but she rapidly put everything together. Her gaze intensified on her tall friend, who despite the height difference was so intimidated she actually took a step back, leaning even more onto the counter behind her.

“What did you do?”

Laura sounded extremely calm. Too calm, as if she was attempting to contain the biggest storm of emotions in her small, clenched fists as they were desperately trying to come out. But she needed an explanation. She had wanted one for so long, she had to know what had happened. What made her life the way it was.

“You were- you _are_ incredibly brilliant. The way you could retain and elaborate information in your brain, it’s nothing like anyone had ever seen before. At only 19, you could make connections the best detectives dreamed of making in their golden years. You would have been an incredible asset to any organization lucky enough to have you”

“But?”

“I told you, Laura, I became an agent whilst we were together and I couldn’t tell you. Do you have any idea how badly I wanted to tell you? And how much it killed me inside to have to lie to the person I- to somebody I cared about? I couldn’t put you through that. You would have had to lie to Laf, Perry, your father-“

“That wasn’t your decision to make!” Laura finally burst out, trying not to let the tears in her eyes fall down.

“I was just trying to protect you, to do what was best for you!”

“And who were you to know what was best for me? Was it best that I get expelled from University just one stupid exam away from getting the degree and consecutive job of my dreams? Was it best that I end up working at a freaking Buy More for five years, hopeless and alone, forced to live with my best friends because I can’t afford to pay rent on my own? Was it best that I…”

She quickly wiped a tear from her cheek.

“Was it best that I thought, every day for five years I thought, ‘how did I become this? How am I such a failure? Where did I go wrong?’ when really, apparently my only fault was being too ‘brilliant’?”

Tears were falling freely now but she couldn’t really bring herself to care.

“Why did you have to humiliate me like that? Make it look like I had stolen documents? Testifying against me! You… you broke my heart. And not just because of… whatever we were. That I could have gotten over. But you were my friend, Danny. I trusted you.”

“I know. I am so sorry. But, as I said, you are brilliant. So brilliant that the agency would have never let you go, risking someone else might recruit you later. You would have been cursed to this life one way or another. So I had to make you look non-brilliant. I had to make you average”

Laura scoffed through the tears.

“Congratulations, then”

She walked past Danny and stormed out the door, the redhead calling after her. Laura marched to the other side of the room and came to a stop right in front of Carmilla, who had finished her speech and was getting her gear ready. The spy looked up to see a dishevelled Laura, dried tears staining her cheeks.

“Creampuff, what’s wrong?”

Laura just shook her head, swiftly wiping a tear off her face, and stared the spy right in the eyes.

“Nothing is wrong. Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry I always take forever to update! I actually had this chapter written for a while but I wasn't very happy with it. Alas, I seem to be too short on time to be especially particular and I didn't want to keep it gathering metaphorical dust any longer.  
> This was meant to be the last chapter but as usual I wrote way more than I planned to. I hope you like this chapter and this story! Please let me know in the comments if you did, it warms my cold, cold heart. And thank you for sticking around even though I can't update very often!  
> Ps. season 3 in six days. Y'all ready? I ain't ready.


	7. Laura vs. The Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One last mission, one last chance to solve all unresolved issues, fill the blanks, say the words, do the things.

“You want to talk about it?”

Carmilla glanced at Laura, who was sitting in the passenger sit next to her, before training her eyes back on the road. They had been driving in silence for over twenty minutes now. She wanted to leave the small girl some time to get over whatever upset her but judging by how she had been alternating between biting her bottom lip and sighing in frustration for the whole trip, that wasn’t working out too well.

Laura gave her a small smile, finally turning away from the window she’d been staring at.

“I do but, not right now. We have bigger things to worry about”

Just as she said that, they finally pulled over near the woods she had climbed out of when escaping, only the day before. Carmilla turned off the engine and turned to look at her.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

The small girl simply nodded and they both got out of the car.

“Alright, teams A, B and D go check the perimeter. C, E and F, with me Laura and Kirsch to find the warehouse. Cupcake, lead the way.”

It took Laura a couple of tries to find her way back since it was dark and she was hurt when she escaped the day before, but they finally did and took no time in taking out the guards and infiltrating the building, which was much bigger than it looked from the outside. Taking advantage of its position in the middle of nowhere, it covered quite some ground.

"What now, boss?"

“I guess we just keep knocking people down til there’s no one left to kick” Carmilla said, Kirsch actually grinning at the idea, probably looking to avenge what they’d done to Danny.

And so they did, advancing from room to room, emptying hallways and disarming bad guys. Laura felt like she was watching a spy film, although she had to stay a bit behind of course, protected by her bulletproof vest with her two friends walking before her, making sure she was safe.

“Kirsch, you remember when we infiltrated PHILO Industries, how quiet everything was…”

“…and how it turned out to be a trap?”

Carmilla nodded.

“I have a really bad feeling of déjà-vu”

Just as she was saying that, they entered a small hallway which was soon filled to the brim with LOPHI agents, attacking Kirsch, Carmilla and their team. In the commotion, none of them noticed Laura being grabbed from the side and taken into an adjacent hallway, a hand on her mouth and a tight arm around her waist.

“LAURA!” Carmilla turned around after kicking a guy in the gut and elbowing another in the face, making them both drop like flies, and locked eyes with Laura’s capturer. Anger, shock, fear and resentment all took over as she threw herself on the closed door, punching it with both fists as she looked through the small window at Laura being dragged away.

“Let her go! Let Laura go! I swear to God, if you hurt one single hair on her head… ELL!”

Laura was unceremoniously dropped onto the floor of a giant room filled with computer and television screens as the other girl busied herself making sure the door was locked behind them, although there was another one separating them from the government agents anyway.

“Twice in two days? Really?”

Laura whined, massaging her head as she slowly stood up.

“It’s not my fault you’re so easy to catch” Ell smirked.

“You know, I actually thought you were on my side! I thought it was just some big misunderstanding, I mean, you helped me yesterday but then now you- why did you take me here anyway?”

Ell rolled her eyes but was distracted by the crashing sound coming from the first hallway door, which was about to give in not 20 metres away.

“We don’t have time for this” she walked to a computer smaller than the rest, situated on a desk in the middle of the room. She grabbed a pair of blacked out goggles from the table, which Laura thought was a bit odd.

“Don’t close your eyes” with that, Ell pulled the goggles over her head and touched the keyboard, as a myriad of images started flowing all around the room.

Laura felt extremely dizzy, her eyes struggling to follow everything that was appearing around her but her brain somehow collecting the information. She wasn’t sure how long it had lasted, but it was enough time for Carmilla and Kirsch to come bursting in through the door, holding their guns against Ell. The blonde pushed another key just before they came in and all the screens in the room made a strange noise, some cracking, some starting to smoke. All fried.

“Hands were I can see them!”

Ell did as she was told.

“Hello to you too, Carmilla. Kirsch.”

“Don’t! After everything you’ve done…”

“It’s okay Kirsch” Carmilla glanced at him, and then back to Ell, whose eyes were now trained behind them. They only had a split second to realise another group of LOPHI agents had caught up to them as they entered the room, all heavily armed.

“Drop your guns!”

Carmilla and Kirsch had instinctively retreated to the other side of the room, next to Laura and Ell, and were pointing their guns to the men in front of them, but they were more than outnumbered, so they begrudgingly complied.

Ell grabbed Laura by the arm, Carmilla staring at her with a killer look as they walked towards the LOPHI guys.

“Laura. I’m going to count to three. When I say ‘three’, I am going to let you go and you are going to fight and disarm these guys.”

Laura looked at her as if she were insane.

“One…”

“Ell, I can’t fight!”

The blonde ignored her and kept walking forward, dragging her with her.

“Two…”

“I am serious, you’re going to get us both killed”

“Three!”

Laura felt her arm being let go of and closed her eyes preparing for her imminent doom. Instead, she felt light-headed but she didn’t really see images or information inside her head. She just knew that when she opened them again a split second later, she started throwing kicks and punches every way, doing so much as a back flip and when she landed, a dozen guys were lying unconscious on the floor. Ell, who had taken down a few guys herself, stared at her with a smirk.

“Guys…”

Laura looked to Kirsch and Carmilla, who were also staring at her with wide eyes and open mouths.

“I know Krav Maga”

“We saw. It was awesome, dude!”

Kirsch grinned at her and gave her a thumbs up.

“What did you do to her?” Carmilla seethed, speaking to Ell.

They could hear steps coming from the end of the hallway in their direction.

“Nothing I can’t explain after we get out of here”

 

 

They actually had a helicopter take them back in the city. Whatever happened in that room with Ell had literally drained the energy out of Laura and she spent the whole trip sleeping with her head lying on Carmilla’s shoulder and her body nestled into her. If the spy minded, she didn’t show it. She actually even found a small blanket and laid it over the shorter girl to make sure she wouldn’t be cold.

They landed the helicopter near the Buy More and then Carmilla drove her home, walking her to her door. Laura suspected she was worried she’d disappear again if she took her eyes off her for just one second.

“I’m okay, Carm. I’ll be okay” she reassured as they both stood awkwardly outside the house.

“Will you?”

“Yes, I will”

The spy’s shoulders seemed to relax a little at that.

“I just need to get some sleep and I’ll see you tomorrow at the base, okay?”

Carmilla returned Laura’s smile with a smaller but equally sincere one, nodding her head.

“Goodnight, Laura”

The shorter girl got on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around the other girl’s neck, taking her by surprise, but she soon felt her arms encircle her as well.

“Night, Carm”

In a spur of the moment decision, she dared to kiss the girl’s cheek before darting off into the house, closing the door behind her without waiting for the spy’s reaction.

Carmilla touched her cheek with a dumbstruck expression and a small smile before walking away.

 

 

Laura started to slowly make her way towards her bedroom, not wanting to wake up her roommates, but stopped in her tracks when the living room light suddenly turned on.

“Hello Laura”

The girl almost had a heart attack when she saw Perry standing behind the couch, a tight lipped smile and wide eyes, apparently focusing all of her strength on staying calm. Or at least, trying to. The vein threatening to pop on her forehead was not a good sign though. Nor were the many, many, _many_ trays of brownies that Laura noticed covered any available surface of the kitchen. Stress baking, never a good sign.

“Hi, Perry. Sorry I came home so late, didn’t mean to wake you or anything…”

She tried, cautiously taking a couple steps forward.

“Of course not, L, it’s all good” Laf tried to intervene from their spot on the couch, but Perry stopped them, pinching their shoulders as she was standing directly behind them.

“Where have you been, Laura?”

“I uhm, I was with-“

“Let me guess, with Carmilla?”

“Yeah”

The curly haired woman nodded, finally taking her eyes off her friend and letting her smile drop. With a sigh, she went to sit next to Lafontaine, suddenly seeming quite tired.

“What is going on, Laura?”

“What?”

Laura furrowed her brows, but took a sit on the armchair next to the couch.

“You’re gone all hours of the day and night, you come back exhausted, your clothes are half burnt or covered in substances I can’t even name – which are all very hard to wash out, I might add”

“You did my laundry?”

“I was nervous and worried, so I cleaned! I cleaned and I baked and then I cleaned some more and-“

Lafontaine took their fiancée’s hand and squeeze it to calm her down, Perry smiling thankfully at them.

“Please just tell me, I feel like I’m going insane here”

Laura bit her lip, looking at Laf. They slightly shook their head no, not thinking Perry could really recover if they told her the truth. Laura took a deep breath and started talking anyway.

About an hour later, Perry was still sitting on the couch with Lafontaine next to her, trying to soothe her by drawing circles with their thumb on her hand, Laura standing in front of the both of them as she had been pacing back and force, recounting everything.

“You knew all this?”

She turned to Laf, who looked extremely sorry and guilty.

“I made them promise not to tell you, it’s my fault” Laura jumped in.

Perry sighed for the thousand time that night.

“This is insane. This is absolutely insane. You are a spy. Carmilla is a spy. Kirsch is a spy. Danny is a spy. And she was in a coma? Caused by Carmilla’s evil ex who’s maybe not so evil but you don’t really know? And you were poisoned? And kidnapped? Twice?!”

Her voice was getting higher and higher with each word, her eyes getting wider.

“No, no no no. This is too much. This…” she got up shaking her head and pointing in Laura’s general direction.

“This is not okay. Why can’t everything just be normal, uh? Why can’t you just BE NORMAL!”

She looked at Laura pointedly before marching away into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

“I should…” Lafontaine motioned towards the same direction.

“Sure, go check on her. I am in desperate need of sleep anyway”

Laf gave her a thankful and sympathetic look and rushed to go comfort their fiancée, whilst Laura finally made her way to her room, collapsing on her bed like she had gotten used to doing after most missions by now, quickly falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.

 

 

Laura’s peaceful sleep was rudely interrupted by two soft knocks on the door, the next morning. She groaned and tossed about in her bed, not wanting to get up. She had her back to the door, so she didn’t see it opening, nor did she notice anyone entering.

She only recognised another presence in the room when she felt a raspy voice whisper in her ear.

“Waky, waky”

Laura’s eyes darted open, she shrieked and was so taken aback she actually rolled and fell off the bed. She sat up frowning but couldn’t help breaking out into a smile when she saw Carmilla laughing beautifully at her.

“Well, I wanted to take you out to breakfast before talking to Beckman but the curly one insists that we eat here instead. I easily gave in at the heavenly smell of whatever she’s cooking”

Carmilla walked over to her and offered her her hand, helping her stand up. She didn’t let her hand go until they both sat down next to each other at the kitchen table, greeting the two gingers.

The four of them ate Perry’s delicious pancakes, Carmilla making fun of Laura’s generous amount of maple syrup only once, Laura blowing her a raspberry in return.

“So Carmilla, how’s all that spy stuff going?”

The aforementioned girl nearly chocked on the black coffee she had been drinking, eyes immediately darting to Laura, who smiled apologetically.

“Uhm… good. It’s going good” she replied, setting down her coffee.

“Good. Now, I am not expecting to convince Laura to drop this absurd notion that she should go around and put her life in danger any other day because, well, she _is_ an adult and a stubborn one at that and I know there would probably be no talking her out of it”

She sighed in defeat.

“But, do not expect me to just sit around while you both throw yourself into these crazy dangerous situations! I mean poison? Bombs?!”

She was getting agitated again and Laf calmly squeezed her hand.

“What I will need you to do Carmilla, is come back here at your earliest convenience so we can go over a list of rules for when you take Laura out with you”

Carmilla smirked at Laura, who in return blushed, hiding her face into her cup of hot chocolate. Perry rolled her eyes.

“I mean on missions”

“Wait, you made a list?”

Perry nodded vehemently and quite happily.

“Of course she did” Carmilla mumbled, Laura hitting her leg lightly under the table.

“That can be arranged. Right, Carm?”

The spy looked at Laura sceptically but nodded anyway.

“Great. Now I think we should really go though. Wouldn’t want to keep the General waiting” she said, getting up from the table, Carmilla following suit.

She thanked Perry for understanding, hugging her, then hugged Laf as well. Carmilla said her goodbyes politely and they both made their way to the base.

 

 

“What the hell is this?”

Carmilla stormed into the base, stopping a couple feet away from the blonde girl standing in the middle of the main room.

“Why isn’t she locked in a cell somewhere?”

She asked Kirsch, who was cleaning his guns nearby.

“Ouch” Ell commented, gaining nothing but a glare from the spy.

“The General cleared her” was all the man said with a shrug.

“Can I just have a chance to explain?” Ell asked, exasperated.

“No” both Kirsch and Carmilla said in unison.

“Guys, I think we should hear her out”

Everybody turned to Laura, her team with shock, the blonde with gratitude in the form of a small smile.

“She did send me the Intersect after all”

“She what now?” the man asked, mirroring the dark haired girl’s expression of growing confusion.

“And gave me an update yesterday, too”

“How long have you known?” Ell was smirking at the short girl, clearly impressed.

“Ever since they told me Danny wasn’t the one to send it to me. I was wrecking my brain before that to try and figure out how you could possibly know I had it. It all made sense after that. She was the last one to have it before me, you were the last one to see her before she went into a coma”

“But why?” Kirsch intervened.

Ell waited a bit and took a deep breath before starting to explain.

“LOPHI was created as an independent rogue unit inside the major government agencies with the purpose of gathering the biggest amount of information from all of those and selling it to the highest bidder, basically. The Intersect project proved to be the perfect subject for this: the country’s biggest and darkest secrets all put together so conveniently into one single machine. Better yet, as the CIA had secretly been working on, one single mind? A human Intersect. Of course, this was all theory still, but think of the possibilities”

She winked at Laura then.

“Spare us the theatrics, get to the part where you tell us why exactly we shouldn’t knock you unconscious right this second” Carmilla chimed in.

“Patience, darling. So as I was saying, LOPHI was very interested in this but it was still in its theoretical state. Progress was being made though, and the day a human Intersect would actually be plausible was nearing. So LOPHI waited, hiding corrupted spies in every agency, waiting for the day the project would be completed. And it was. But it seemed to be impossible to find a candidate capable of retaining the information in their brain. Upon seeing the Intersect images, most ended up quite… fried.

Here’s where our dearest Danny comes in. The NSA somehow found out there were traitors inside the Intersect project and sent Lawrence and her team to retrieve the intel and destroy any trace of it. Which she did, downloading it into her phone. She and her team underestimated the size of LOPHI though, and as she made it out she was followed by a group of traitors. I was amongst them. I was the one who shot her.”

Kirsch clenched his fists at that, trying his best not to jump at Ell then.

“I am sorry, Kirsch, I really am, you have to believe me. But it was the only way I had to save her life.”

“Save her?! You nearly killed her!”

“I didn’t though! I was the one who made sure she stayed alive! I took her phone with the Intersect and convinced everyone at LOPHI she was the only one who still had it, hiding in her brain somewhere. I told them she saw the images. But they couldn’t do anything to her to get them out or prove me wrong until she woke up so I made sure she didn’t”

“You-”

“Kirsch, wait, hear me out, okay? I helped her. I helped _you_! Who do you think had her transferred to PHILO Industries, where you could find and save her? And who put your… informant” she turned to Carmilla, “onto that place, do you think, and told him to make sure you got that business card?”

Carmilla shook her head, trying to digest everything the blonde had been saying.

“Wait, this still doesn’t explain how Laura was involved”

“When I retrieved Danny’s phone with the Intersect on it, I knew I couldn’t keep it. You keep no secrets at LOPHI, they’re all double agents, they can spot a lie. And they do random searches, I couldn’t risk it falling into their hands after everything I had done to avoid that.

As I said, the government had yet to find the perfect human subject, but there had been candidates. The scouting began years before the project was even completed, and many were tested and failed. One passed, but was crossed over later”

“Me” Laura said in realization. Ell nodded.

“I did some quick research, saw you went to Stanford, where I know the government recruits a lot of agents. And you knew Lawrence, that was too big to be a coincidence. So I sent you the Intersect, made sure you survived seeing it, which I assumed you did when General Spieldorf was saved, and destroyed any other copy of the information”

“You could have killed me!”

“But I didn’t”

“But you could have!”

Ell rolled her eyes.

“Could have, would have, what does it matter now? I didn’t kill you, I saved your life – twice – and I even upgraded you, why am I even defending myself, you should thank me”

Kirsch, Laura and Carmilla all levelled her with a glare.

“Okay, maybe not thank me, but, you know, maybe turn down the hate a notch? I never stopped working for the CIA, I was a double agent inside of LOPHI. The only reason I stayed there was to make sure they never got to use the new Intersect they were building. Which they didn't. You see, I’m on the good side here!”

“You lied to me”

Carmilla’s voice was smaller than Laura had ever heard her and it broke her heart hearing her like that and seeing her desperate eyes while she was looking at Ell.

“Carmilla…”

“I should go check on Danny. Little nerd?” Kirsch motioned behind him, where the hallway leading to Danny’s current room was.

“Uh, I should get back to the Buy More.” She looked at Carmilla, silently asking if it was okay to leave her and her ex-partner on their own, and the spy silently nodded.

“You lied to me” Carmilla repeated calmly when she and Ell were alone.

“Carmilla, you know in our line of work sometimes you have to-“

“You lied to _me_ , Ell”

The blonde broke their stare, looking at the floor with a deep sigh.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry” Carmilla repeated unemotionally. The other girl nodded.

“I am. I really am, but the mission-“

“Who the fuck cares about the mission, Ell!” Carmilla yelled suddenly.

“I loved you! I trusted you and you just lied to me and let me believe everything we ever had never mattered because it didn’t!”

Ell walked closer to her, trying to put a comforting hand on her arm but Carmilla shook her off.

“Don’t say that, of course it did”

“It didn’t, because if it did, if you really loved me like you said you did you would have _known_. You would have known how broken you leaving and betraying me like that would make me and you would have never, ever let that happen”

The two stared at each other in silence, Carmilla’s chest heaving from her sudden outburst.

“Come away with me”

The dark haired girl snorted at that because she didn’t know how else to respond.

“I’m serious! Beckman is giving me an assignment in Spain, she asked me to get you on board as well. I know I will never be able to apologise enough for leaving you in the dark about this… but maybe I can show you how sorry I am. We can go back to breaking limbs and breaking hearts together” she smiled a little, putting a hand on Carmilla’s, which was resting on the table next to them.

“You could ask for another assignment but, I would really love it if we could try again. We could be like we were before. We could be better. No more lies”

Ell squeezed Carmilla’s hand as the spy just stared at her, speechless.

“You don’t have to say anything right now. I am leaving tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock, at the docks. Just be there, or don’t. But I really hope you’ll join me” she gave her another small smile and squeeze her hand again before letting it go and leaving the base.

 

 

“Hey, little nerd!”

Kirsch approached Laura at her booth with a huge grin on his face.

“Hey, Kirsch. How are you doing? How’s Danny?”

“Good, good. We’re both good. She’s is like, super sorry about what happened with you though. She said to stress that”

“I know she is. I just need a little time to get over it is all”

He nodded in understanding.

“What’s that?” Laura asked curiously, eyeing the envelope in his hands.

“Oh right, I almost forgot! This is for you” he answered with a huge grin, handing it to her.

The girl carefully opened it, her eyes nearly bulging out of her head when she saw the contents.

“Holy Hufflepuff that is a lot of zeroes”

She remarked, starting incredulously at the check in her hands.

“Your country thanks you for your service”

“And I thank my country” Laura replied, still unable to look away from the piece of paper.

“You know what this means?” she asked, finally looking up at Kirsch, who shook his head with a frown. She smiled at him, putting the check away and starting to walk towards the end of the shop.

She knocked on her superior’s office twice, waiting to hear him call her in and immediately starting to speak as she did.

“Emmett, hi. I really don’t know how to say this because I’ve fantasized about this moment for such a long time and now that it’s finally here I just-“

“Let me stop you right there”

He put a finger up and sneered at her.

“I know what you’re going to say”

“You do?”

She asked in surprise.

“Yes. I knew this day would come eventually. You finally decided to give up your lesbian way of life and admit your undying love for me”

Laura actually burst out laughing at that.

“Yeah, no. I’m quitting.”

She took off her pens and name tag and put them on his desk, turning to walk away.

“Yo, me too” Kirsch popped his head in just to say that.

They both started walking towards the exit of the store as they heard Emmett yell behind them.

“You can’t just quit the Buy More! You need this place! What are you going to do with the rest of your life?!”

Laura smiled, not even turning around.

“Anything I want”

 

 

In all honesty, Laura had no idea what she was going to do with her life now. She was surely going to sleep for a few days straight, catch up on some of her favourite TV series, feast on all the sugary goodness Perry was going to stress-bake. But there was one thing she wanted to do most of all, and that’s what she focused on as she knocked on the door in front of her with a huge smile on her face.

“Laura?” Carmilla seemed surprised to see her standing in her hotel hallway.

“Hi. Can I come in?” Laura smiled shyly, the other girl simply stepping away to let her inside and closing the door behind her.

“What brings you here?”

“I wanted to talk to you”

Carmilla motioned her to go on.

“Right. I’ve recently happened to come into quite a generous amount of money, courtesy of the US government. So I quit my job. And I was thinking, after everything that’s happened in the past few months, I definitely need a holiday. And I thought maybe you might need a holiday too. So then I thought maybe we could go on a holiday together?”

“Cupcake…”

“It doesn’t even have to be a big holiday, we could just go lie on a beach for days somewhere nice and warm where the water is see-through and the cocktails all have tiny umbrellas in them”

Carmilla still looked unconvinced so she continued.

“Or-or, if you don’t like the sound of that, maybe we could go somewhere colder. You know I never learned to ski? I think I would like to ski. I mean I would probably endanger myself and everyone around me but I think with you there it would be okay. Or, if you don’t want that either, maybe Europe…”

“Laura…”

The small girl took the spy’s hands in hers.

“I just want to be with you, Carm. Just be with you and be normal. No spies, no lies, no missions or guns. Just you and me, together”

Laura looked up at her so adoringly and full of hope, Carmilla couldn’t hold her stare.

“I am leaving in the morning”

The shorter girl let go of her hands.

“What?”

“I have an assignment in Spain with Ell”

She bit her lip as she looked back up at Laura, trying to gauge her reaction.

“Oh. No, of course, it makes sense, why would you choose… it makes sense. The great duo is back together”

“Laura…”

“No, it’s fine really. So I guess this is goodbye. Well, thank you for everything. You know, saving my life and stuff. Appreciate it.”

She walked backwards to the door as she spoke and turned around to open it when she reached it.

“Laura wait”

The short girl turned back to her with a sad smile.

“Goodbye Carmilla”

 

 

“L, I don’t think this is good for you”

“Yeshitis”

Laura mumbled around a spoonful of ice-cream, hugging the tub closer as Laf tried to take it away. They gave up but took the remote control and turned off the television.

“Hey, I was watching that!”

“Yeah, I know. You’ve been watching that for the past 16 hours. I think you need to get out of here”

“Nope”

Laura nuzzled deeper into the comfort of their couch, still holding the ice-cream close.

“Fine. Would you at least put some trousers on?” Lafontaine sighed, eyeing Laura’s attire, or lack there-of. She had been sitting on the couch all night watching television in her doctor who shirt and underwear.

The girl shook her head.

“Ugh, fine. Keep being the piniest pine who ever pined, I’m out of here. There’s leftovers in the fridge if you decide you want actual food” They called back, putting on their jacket and leaving the house.

Laura picked up the remote control and was about to turn the TV back on when she heard the door open and shut again.

“Did you forget something?”

“In fact, I did”

The girl looked up at the unexpected guest, quickly wiping her chocolate covered mouth in the blanket she had been using and setting the ice-cream tub on the coffee table in front of her.

“May I?” Carmilla gestured to a spot next to Laura on the couch and sat there after the girl nodded faintly.

“What are you doing here? Don’t you have a train or plane or jet or whatever to catch?” Laura asked, staring down at her own hands playing with her blanket.

“I don’t, actually”

The other girl looked at her quizzically, so she elaborated.

“I told Ell and Beckman that I didn’t really feel like leaving right now”

“Why?”

Carmilla shrugged.

“Because I didn’t really feel like leaving right now”

The two stared at each other in silence for little while, until Laura made a decision, turning in her sit so she could give her undivided attention to the spy, who also adjusted herself so she was facing the other girl.

“You know, I realised something, earlier, while I was watching the season 9 finale of Doctor Who. Clara and the Doctor were talking about how they never really said what they needed to when they had the chance and…”

She looked at Carmilla and saw her perplexed expression so she stopped herself.

“Never mind, it doesn’t matter. The point is, I realised there’s something I haven’t taken into account. And as improbable, as ridiculous as it is… I need to ask. I need to know. So I’m asking.”

She stilled herself, taking a deep breath before looking the girl right in the eyes.

“Carmilla, do you love me?”

The spy’s eyes widened at her question.

“I mean, love is such a big word and I am not saying I love you because, well, maybe I do but I couldn’t because we’ve never even been together in a not-fake relationship way, like together-together and that would be crazy right?”

Carmilla stared at her for a bit, with a small smile tugging at her lips.

“Yes”

“Right. And I don’t want to be crazy, so…”

“No, Laura”

Carmilla shook her head as her smile widened ever so slowly.

“I mean, _yes_ ”

And she actually smiled, a real, toothy grin for the first time since the two met.

“I think I loved you since our very first date when you told me those ridiculous stories about your friend turning you shades of blue, and when you made that adorably hilarious frown when you found out I don’t watch any television. Kind of like the one you have now.”

She slowly moved closer to Laura, until their faces were almost inches apart.

The small girl followed her movements with her eyes, a smile starting to form on her lips. It was small at first, but it grew and grew as Carmilla moved closer, until it was so big it took over her entire face.

“You love me?”

The spy’s smile matched her own as she held a hand up to Laura’s cheek. She closed the distance between them, kissing her softly and briefly, both closing their eyes. When they opened them again, they saw nothing but adoration in each other. Carmilla kissed Laura again, with more intention, carefully guiding them both so they were lying on the couch. She forced herself away a couple minutes later, staring down at Laura and moving a strand of hair away from her face with her fingers.

“I do love you, Laura. I love you so much.”

The short girl smiled and brought Carmilla’s face closer to her again with her hand behind her neck.

“I love you too”

She whispered against her lips before crashing them with her own again.

Laura had no idea what she was going to do with her life now. But as long as she had Carmilla next to her, she didn’t care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updating only after three days! Are you shook? I'm shook. And here's the kicker: I wrote this whole chapter in one sitting! Well, in one day, technically two sittings, but still, it's a definite improvement from the month or so it usually takes me.
> 
> We've reached the end my friends. I hope you're satisfied with the conclusion of this silly little tale. Please leave me some feedback in the comments if you are, as of now I am not even sure anyone reads this at all xD
> 
> Also I might have something else in the works... I'm on a roll baby.
> 
> Ps. Three more days til we all dead. #RIPCreampuffs2k16

**Author's Note:**

> I have no beta, so please excuse any typos! Comments are always very welcome. :)


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